A Huge Mistake Startups Make - we are the x of/for the y

http://www.centernetworks.com/huge-mistake-startup-pitches

by duck • 16 years ago

14 15 16 years ago

aspir2• 16 years ago

Unless you stop trying to be someone else, and start trying to the best "you" you can be, you're not a novel opportunity.

pg2• 16 years ago

This isn't about what startups are, merely how they describe what they are.

aspir2• 16 years ago

What I meant with that last comment was that in a setting like Disrupt, you are exactly what your audience thinks you are during a pitch, and an "x of y" description can leave the incorrect first impression that you are "me too" opportunity, which Opzi and many other startups are not. In non-SV areas, that thinking is a paradigm that cannot be unshifted. I've seen a great deal of cool and creative ideas come out of places like OKC that get brushed aside with the "x of y" description. Arguably, it's one of the more intangible benefits of SV.

pg2• 16 years ago

I'd argue that Opzi is actually better off describing themselves that way than trying to explain what they are without references to existing things. Yes, sure, explaining yourself by comparison to existing things raises questions. No one would claim you're done explaining at that point. But you're now only those questions away from being done. Whereas if you give people a long description that attempts to convey all the nuances of what you're doing, you just lose them entirely. Especially in a noisy environment like a conference where lots of other startups are presenting.

In an algorithm for calculating answers by successive approximations, it's fine if the initial approximation is bad, so long as the process converges rapidly.

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

The problem with analogies is picking one that doesn't break down too quickly.

mrtron• 16 years ago

I think the Quora example does give off a bad vibe.

a) We are a Quora for the enterprise

b) We are Youtube for audio

Quora for the enterprise sounds like a superset. Quora, plus enterprisey features. Quora could compete, their core competency is in that set.

Youtube for audio sounds like disjoint sets. OK, I know what Youtube does. They do video well. I could see a good audio site that does it similarly, allows user submissions, etc. Youtube isn't a competitor, it is a model.

grackle• 16 years ago

Indeed. The key here is recognizing that the "model" approach is fundamentally different than the "superset" approach. Too often these get blended together.

Portraying your idea as the sum of several individual models can be a very effective technique. Saying something like "you can send your friends fake gifts, just like you can on Facebook" and "you have a live chat window like JustinTV" is more likely to promote understanding and less likely to raise questions than saying "Imagine if Facebook was better..."

(Yesterday, I actually saw a presenter get grilled for 20 minutes about features completely unrelated to their program, due largely to the fact that they took this "Imagine If.." approach.)

holman• 16 years ago

I disagree. For every startup that can easily and succinctly communicate their purpose and value, there's ten that stumble over vague, non-descriptive utterances. If you can say "We're like Facebook for pets", that has value and we can immediately hone-in on what specifically differentiates you.

bherms• 16 years ago

I'm not a fan of this approach, or the "we're like x meets y meets z" (mashup of services), but I can see the value in giving unfamiliar listeners familiar reference points. As long as you can easily field the followup questions -- you can differentiate yourself or describe competitive advantage -- I think you're fine.

edit: Another problem I've seen with using this approach is that sometimes they use existing services to describe their service, and it actually undercuts their value. For example, someone builds service to capitalize on the networking, information sharing, and shared knowledge base of pet owners but sells as "facebook for pet owners." Well, pet owners use Facebook, so the value proposition is lost in the analogy without further reinforcement.

jkincaid• 16 years ago

Strongly disagree with this (and I've seen my fair share of pitches). I'd much rather hear you're the "x of y" followed by an explanation of your key differences than listen to you reinvent the wheel.

dstein• 16 years ago

You just described the exact difference between innovation, and following a trend. People generally do not like to hear about innovation (new ideas), they want buzz.

minalecs• 16 years ago

Any one know how they answered the question ?

joshu• 16 years ago

sometimes "we're x for y" is an easy summary. sometimes it's a thought process.

the first is ok, the second is usually bad.

i see a lot of startups like this. "we're foursquare for lipstick! women's cosmetics is a $47 billion industry, if we could get just 1% of the market we'd be huge. we're two stanford MBAs, our development is outsourced, and we have no actual women on our team."

DevX101• 16 years ago

I don't have a problem with this description. Us humans think in symbols, and this is a high compression method to convey a complex idea.

Besides, even if they described it another way, astute observers would be asking the same question: Why won't Quora, or [include social platform] compete with you? This is a good question for the founders to know the answer to, regardless of how they want to frame the description of their company.

kirvyteo• 16 years ago

It depends on the X and Y. If you say - You are the "successful company" of X industry for the Y industry, then there is no issue of X overlapping Y, since X and Y are distinct enough. For Opzi, they are just targeting another segment in the same industry, and that is too close for comfort.

A Huge Mistake Startups Make - we are the x of/for the y

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