Framing it right

Every entrepreneur who's done any research has heard about being ready with the 'elevator pitch' - in the event you shared a ride on the elevator with VC who somehow would rather ask what you are doing then stare at the flashing floor numbers, you'd be all set. All cynicism aside, it is really a good thing to be able to articulate your vision as crisply as possible. And it is good for you, the entrepreneur, not just the person who's listening to you.

I have been crafting a one-liner for a while now, and have used it pretty successfully. But, notice the 'have been' - it's gone through a lot of changes and and the reason is that I have to keep tweaking the words to say what I want. It is not so much that the startup idea changes week to week (that would be scary) but that my view of what I want people to think about gets clearer. Any product idea, even one that can be described in one sentence with a few words, has a lot more to it than just the 'what'. There's the how, the who for, the when, where and most of all why - and of course, the all important differentiator that sets you apart from the pack. And unfortunately, the natural tendency is to try to put them all into that one sentence just so there's nothing left to the imagination (and potential confusion).

Think about it - 'a car that dynamically shifts from conventional gas-power to one continuously recharging batteries to greatly reduce fuel consumption while delivering necessary power' tells you a lot, but doesn't leave you with the impact of a 'gas/electric hybrid car that gives you 50 mpg'. So the elevator pitch is not all about giving the most information in the shortest time, but making the best impression in the shortest time.

It may not be feasible for all entrepreneurs to articulate their product vision clearly from a wordsmithing perspective, which is why they seek marketing partners. But however they do it, the result is immensely helpful not only in getting the point across, but also in retaining your product focus. The more minutiae you have in your product thumbnail, the more likely you (and your potential audience) are to get side-tracked by them. I think framing your product crisply is particularly important when you're a startup - you have a lot more leeway when you're much bigger and more established. In my opinion, Google was successful because they set out to provide the best search engine, period - if they'd started off wanting to provide a search engine, along with email, a map app, news aggregator etc. , wow, they'd have been like Excite and maybe they'd have met a similar fate?