All you North American sports fans out there: have you ever read a cricket report in a British newspaper?
My bet is any fan of the NFL,
Too many statements from startups – whether they’re pitches, or blogs, or press releases, or demos -- come across like a British cricket report. They target a specific audience and are incomprehensible to most other people. And they often result in the company losing opportunities to engage key partners, including investors. People tend not to invest in companies they don’t understand. As I wrote last week, an inability to simply tell people what your startup does can kill your company.
And that is not to say that this sort of communication is easy. Describing innovation is inherently difficult because when you describe something truly innovative you’re asking people to extend their imagination and comprehension beyond the things they’re familiar with. But here are five tips that I hope will help you communicate wisely:
- Target the Broadest Possible Population. Strive for a message that can be understood by any audience you may need to engage -- strategic partners, customers, government, VCs and angels. That last one is most important. Most angels are over 50 and made their money in traditional industries or a profession. You need to engage such people. The Launch36 accelerator in Moncton recently had an interesting exercise: each founder had to bring an elderly relative to a meeting, and everyone had to deliver an elevator pitch to someone else’s grandmother or uncle. Every founder should strive for a level of clarity to reach such an audience.
- Focus on One Big Thing. Your product likely has a variety of features and applications, but resist the temptation to describe all of them. Highlight the one dazzling application that makes your product unique, and make that your central message. The problem with trying to include everything is you risk broadening the description so wide that it becomes meaningless. Your company may have a mobile app that tells people all the hotel vacancies and prices within five miles of their current location. That description will garner more attention than saying your product, accounting for all the features, enhances the experience of the hospitality industry.
- Choose Clarity Over Precision. Clarity and precision should be the prime goals of all your corporate communications. But these two qualities can conflict with each other, and clarity should win out. In seeking the greatest possible accuracy when describing their product, founders often highlight the operating system, coding language, comparable technology and the like. It’s great to be as precise as possible, but too much detail in a technical description confuses your audience. Start off with a clear description. If your audience wants technical details, they’ll tell you so and you can take the conversation in that direction.
- Avoid Jargon – Especially Startup Jargon. There’s a massive and dangerous proclivity in the startup world to sound like you’re from the startup world. You know the type: “We were asked for 14 term sheets at 48 Hours in the Valley before we even finished our MVP or began our Alpha. . . .” These people think they sound like Mark Zuckerberg but end up sounding like Hanna Montana. Non-tech journalists generally despise such talk. Yes, you can use these terms but don’t flaunt them. Investors want to back founders with the potential of building a corporation, so your diction should convince them that you have the gravitas to develop a company. Most jargon should be avoided because it confuses people, and the hip startup-speak may really undermine your mission.
- Seek Help. Too few founders appreciate how bad they are at communicating. So after you pitch or describe your startup, ask people how you did – not just the business case, but the message. Run your written communications by someone who can write. You must know an English major or a journalism grad. Ask for their help. (Do it just before you ask for the bill, when they’re still expecting a nice tip.) And proof-read EVERY written communication repeatedly.
Honing a message for a startup is never easy. Work at several different versions with your team until you have something you’re happy with. It’s worth the effort.
