One of the biggest mistakes startups make is comparing their product or service with another popular startup or website:
Often the attributes of the company that you compare yourself to eclipse the original features of your product. Since your professional aim is to deviate from and excel above the competition, the last thing you should do is limit the inventiveness of your product by anchoring it to an already established business.
Instead of using an analogy, use a metaphor when describing your product or service. A metaphor is a creative figure of a speech used to abstractly symbolize something else. By comparing yourself to another pre-existing site, you are limited to a person's immediate understanding or opinion of that product. "I'm creating an online watering hole for educators" sounds more compelling than a "cross between Facebook and Google Scholar."
One of the most exciting and productive activities you can do as a startup founder is brainstorming: " Let's talk about new product ideas! Cool design concepts! Disruptive marketing hacks! Maybe even throw in a famous spokesperson for our company! "
The truth is that brainstorming is really less about coming up with new ideas and more about sifting out the "gems" from the thought pool. After you've generated a few golden nuggets, you'll need to take them and synthesize a cohesive set of good—and doable — ideas that can form the foundation for a viable new business.
This is harder than it looks, though. Finding an experienced entrepreneur and pretending he or she is your co-founder can do your business a world of good. Bounce ideas around with this person for an hour or two. Experienced entrepreneurs typically have an excellent knack for weeding out bad ideas, having been burned by similar ones in the past. Be patient and prepared to go through three or four generations of your concept. Under-thinking areas that are unfamiliar and over-thinking areas that you claim expertise over often skews the results of brainstorming towards your comfort zone instead of the market opportunity.
So, before you commit resources to building out an idea, work with an experienced professional to get some extra insight.
Once you have honed in on an idea that you believe is the right one, you must be prepared to explain to yourself and others why you are the perfect candidate to run the venture.
Look at this as an application essay for yourself as the CEO of your company. Your competency could be due to your prior experience, educational background, lifelong passion, circumstances, skill sets, or a combination of any of these traits. The key is to convince others that there is no one else more adequately qualified for the job.
Your narrative should be natural and logical with the potential to become your personal story behind founding the company. Investors and customers should be persuaded that you are the perfect fit for the endeavor because of it.
Startups are often a manifestation of everything you are. You can't launch a startup if you can't convince others that you are the perfect candidate to do so.
How a person reacts is more important than what they say after you stop speaking.
In a typical marketing study, you'd have a one-way mirror for observance. However, in a natural social gathering (such as a dinner with prospective customers) gaging reactions is a bit more challenging. Have a team member attend dinner with you to help observe reception. While one person pitches, the other can observe how the prospective client or investor reacts to the product. Naturally, there will be some things that worked better and others that worked less effectively than you'd expected.
The goal is to get as many reactions as possible. These responses will give you perspective on how your idea would translate during typical interaction with your product.
People are really good at picking up cues and adjusting their stories based on these initial reactions. After you have a few of these sample pitches under your belt, you'll be able to quickly adjust your strategy to ensure efficiency.
A dinner with someone is essentially a pitch to someone, and by the time you have done it twenty times, it will be easy for you to stand in-front of a room to pitch what you do. Alternate who performs these pitches; through a number of permutations, you may get mutations of the ideas. Pay careful attention to how your pitch develops over time. Honing in on the new ways in which you pitch your product may help refine the function of your product as well.