Reflecting more on last week’s adventure at the amazing SaaStr Annual and Endeavor international selection panel, I noted that entrepreneurs, with all their enthusiasm and energy, have an opportunity to improve on their elevator pitch and storytelling.
The simplest, and most straightforward, elevator pitch is like a Mad Libs: My company _________ helps businesses like _________ make more money by _________. Pretty easy, right? Start with the company name, then add social proof via existing customers, and finally top it off by a brief explanation of the actual service. Let’s look at an example: My company Calendly helps businesses like LinkedIn and Zendesk make more money by scheduling meetings without the back-and-forth emails. Now, there’s much more to the business, vision, etc. but the goal isn’t to share your life’s story. Rather, the goal is to assess interest, evaluate body language, and decide if it’s time to share more. With a positive nod and enthusiasm from the simple pitch, it’s time for the next step. With the audience primed, it’s time for the 100 word story. Warby Parker, a popular direct-to-consumer eyeglasses company tells their story in 100 words. Once upon a time, a young man left his glasses on an airplane. He tried to buy new glasses. But new glasses were expensive. “Why is it so hard to buy stylish glasses without spending a fortune on them?” he wondered. He returned to school and told his friends. “We should start a company to sell amazing glasses for non-insane prices,” said one. “We should make shopping for glasses fun,” said another. “We should distribute a pair of glasses to someone in need for every paid sold”, said a third. Eureka! Warby Parker was born. Share the origin story of the business. Share the vision of the future. Share what’s next. But, most importantly, do this in 100 words. Something succinct. Something easily digestible. Too often, entrepreneurs take too much time and go into excruciating detail. Keep it light, fun, and memorable. Stories are memorable, details are not. Take a few minutes, develop a simple pitch, a 100 word story, and align the team around it — think storytelling, not detail telling. from https://davidcummings.org/2019/02/15/startup-storytelling-simple-pitches-and-100-words/
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For the last two days I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with entrepreneurs from around the world through Endeavor. In our group, we had entrepreneurs from Venezuela, Columbia, Greece, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia all sharing stories of challenge and opportunity. As part of the program, we spent time talking through their customers using a simple naming convention:
Now, these names aren’t meant to degrade or belittle certain customers. Rather, they’re for the entrepreneur to understand what is, and what isn’t, working within segments of the business. For each segment, here are some common metrics:
Only, by looking deeper, new insights emerge. Instead of investing resources to grow all segments, invest in the most important segments. Segments are divided based on a variety of characteristics including:
Initially, as the business is growing, it’s best to keep things simple. Once some level of scale is reached — say 100+ customers — it’s good to segment the customers and understand the business in a more fine-grained way. What else? What are some more ideas on segmenting customers? from https://davidcummings.org/2019/02/08/segment-customers-from-flies-to-whales/ Earlier this week I was talking to an entrepreneur that shared stories of a previous startup he’d joined a few years back. The now-removed leader of this previous company had a big-shot corporate executive background and was placed in this over-funded startup before it had product/market fit. As expected, their office was lavishly furnished, money was spent like they were already a profitable cash cow, and six months later the startup was bankrupt. Boom, millions of dollars incinerated and nothing to show for it. Starting lean and scrappy is an important part of the startup process. When entrepreneurs raise a large round before a repeatable, scalable business model, most of the time bad things happen. Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch, so it’s only human nature to burn all the cash in 18 months, regardless of whether or not the business is working. When the cash is burned, and the business doesn’t make enough progress, investors are less likely to put in more cash, the cap table is often broken, and the startup usually ends in failure. At Pardot, we never had institutional investors. From day one, we had to be scrappy — there was no other way. Every dollar we saved was a dollar to invest and grow the business. Even when we had over $10M in recurring revenue, Adam and I shared a hotel room on every trip. Little costs add up to big costs as the business scales. Now, once the business model is working, there does come a time to ease up on the scrappiness — within reason, of course — and find a comfortable financial balance between spending too conservatively and being a spendthrift. But, like many things, as the financial purse strings are loosened, it becomes harder and harder to tighten them back. Entrepreneurs would do well to ensure a scrappy, financially resourceful environment until a repeatable business model, and then slowly find a comfortable balance. from https://davidcummings.org/2019/02/02/scrappy-first-comfortable-financial-balance-later/ Recently, several entrepreneurs have asked me about revenue financing loans. Revenue financing is a fancy way of saying a semi-complicated loan where payback is dictated by a number of elements including a percentage of revenue, not just a traditional interest rate. The good news is that it provides for a more aggressive, non-dilutive (usually) form of financing for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies. The bad news is that it’s much more expensive than a bank loan, but still not nearly as expensive as venture capital. Here’s how an example revenue financing loan might work:
Wow, it is complicated! Net net, it’s roughly a 25% interest rate loan with variability based on how fast revenue grows. SaaS, with its amazing margins and cash flow predictability, makes this type of financing uniquely suited to both the investor and the recipient, especially compared to most types of other businesses. SaaS entrepreneurs looking to grow faster, but reluctant to sell equity, would do well to talk to the newish crop of revenue financing firms out there. What else? What are some more thoughts on revenue financing loans? from https://davidcummings.org/2019/01/26/the-rise-of-revenue-financing-loans-for-saas/ Every week entrepreneurs reach out to me for feedback and advice. I like to start the conversation over email, asking different questions and requesting a Simplified One Page Strategic Plan. Inevitably, most of the entrepreneurs haven’t made much progress and are really just interested in feedback on their idea. When the request to judge an idea comes in — and it always does — I politely decline and explain that I’m not the customer. I’m not the target. The only people that can judge the idea are the ones that need it, will pay for it, and want to sign up for it before it’s even ready. Entrepreneurs are actually worse off when people who aren’t potential customers judge their ideas. Too often, people give feedback — positive or negative — that puts the entrepreneur on a path that isn’t helpful. In places that are polite and more supportive (hello, Atlanta!) the tendency is to be encouraging and tell the entrepreneur that their idea is great. When the idea isn’t great, which is most of the time due to a lack of customer discovery, the entrepreneur pats herself on the back and digs in even harder. Only, they’re extending their path to nowhere. Too many entrepreneurs continue to pursue ideas that should be killed based on customer feedback, not random person feedback. While I don’t judge the entrepreneurs’ ideas directly, I like to share different frameworks and ways to think through opportunities. For example, team, stream, and “not a meme” is one of my favorite ways to evaluate a startup. The team, of course, is the entrepreneurs. The stream is the trend or inevitable change they’re riding. And, finally, “not a meme” means the solution is a “must have”, not a “nice to have” (every meme, no matter how funny, isn’t mission critical). Fight the urge, don’t give entrepreneurs feedback on their idea. Instead, push them to talk to customers (customer discovery). Push them to talk to partners. Push them to talk to the experts in the specific industry, not a random person who’s been successful. Help an entrepreneur by not judging her idea. from https://davidcummings.org/2019/01/19/avoid-judging-an-entrepreneurs-idea/ Six months ago we launched the new Atlanta Ventures Startup Studio. A startup studio is just a modern way of saying we partner with entrepreneurs to create new companies from scratch. In addition to investing directly into startups, which we’ve been doing for years, we saw an opportunity to develop a more formal program around ideation, market research, planning, launching, and growing. With so many talented people in town, but a more limited group of entrepreneurs, the ability to take an idea to product/market fit and beyond is the core opportunity. Ideas As expected, ideation is the easy part. Everywhere we look there are opportunities and ways to make people’s lives better. To date, we have a Google Sheet of 80 ideas and are regularly adding to it as well as revising existing ideas. Of course, most aren’t any good but the goal is to focus on “what ifs” and just let the ideas flow. More importantly, having a stable of ideas ready makes it easier to match potential ideas with potential entrepreneurs based on their interests and personalities. Entrepreneurs Finding entrepreneurs to partner with is the hardest part. There are so many great people that want to start a new company, yet we’re very particular in our focus on entrepreneurs that are positive, self-starting, supportive, and have had a prior entrepreneurial failure. In the entrepreneurial context, we look for repeated examples of working through adversity and pushing the boundaries to get things done. State of the Union To date, we’ve launched one company (autonomous lawn mowers), are about to incorporate a second, and have a couple more that are progressing nicely. Frankly, it’s harder than expected, but we’re pleased with the progress. Building companies takes time, and we’re excited to be a part of the journey. Want to take the next step in the entrepreneurial journey? Apply to be an entrepreneur in residence. from https://davidcummings.org/2019/01/12/the-startup-studio-six-months-in/ Entrepreneurs love asking me the question, “Do you regret selling Pardot?” Pardot, as part of Salesforce.com, has done incredibly well ($250M+ in annual revenue!). SaaS is much more valuable and established compared to when we sold the business. Private equity is eagerly buying SaaS companies and often outbidding strategic acquirers. So, if everything has exceeded expectations, are there any regrets? No. None. Adam and I made the best decision we could with all the information we had at the time. Selling Pardot put it in the hands of a well capitalized public company that had a greater chance of realizing the product’s huge potential. Today, Pardot is one of the most widely used B2B marketing products in the world. Selling Pardot chalked up a ‘win’ for us as entrepreneurs. Selling Pardot enabled the Atlanta Tech Village to happen. Selling Pardot enabled me to invest in dozens of startups and pay it forward. It could have turned out differently. But it didn’t. Selling the business was a deeply personal decision and we made the right call. from https://davidcummings.org/2019/01/04/no-regrets-selling-the-business/ This year, I’ve had the opportunity to visit entrepreneurs all across the Southeast, both in Atlanta and their hometown. Seeing the different entrepreneurial communities, and hearing success stories from each city, continues to grow my optimism for entrepreneurship as a force for good. In addition to an optimistic outlook, it also helps me appreciate what we have in our own startup community — great entrepreneurs, great talent, and great programs. Yet, it wasn’t always this way. In late 2008, Adam and I flew to Silicon Valley to pitch the full partnership of a Sand Hill venture capital firm (not one of the A-list firms that typically come to mind) on investing in Pardot. One of the senior partners really liked us and was working to convince the partnership that marketing automation was going to be a big market (most VCs thought the addressable market was too small — hah!). Toward the end of the pitch, which had flowed smoothly, another senior partner, with a professorial look about him, shot out a question, “Do you have any software engineering talent in Atlanta?” Naturally, I offered him my best chamber of commerce response about Georgia Tech and the great engineering schools across the Southeast with heavy representation in Atlanta. Without even internalizing my response, he said, “Why don’t you just move to Silicon Valley?” To him, with a close-minded view of the world, there was no way to build an important startup outside of a 20 mile radius around his office — nevermind that his firm had just invested in an Atlanta startup earlier that year! Thankfully, the partner who made that comment wouldn’t be the lead on our potential deal (we never raised venture capital), but that question and comment has already stuck with me for a decade, and I won’t forget it. Never criticize someone’s hometown or make them feel inferior to yours. Never. John Howard Payne’s famous line came to mind:
With that, we flew home, turned down their expression of interest to keep moving the process forward, and continued building the best company we could. Encourage entrepreneurs. Don’t belittle their hometown. Celebrate the startup journey, regardless of location. from https://davidcummings.org/2018/12/29/home-sweet-home/ About 10 years ago, things were really humming. Family life was great with a little toddler at home, Pardot was taking off nicely, and I had my eye on a used Corvette on eBay Motors. After going back and forth with the seller — a police officer in Palm Coast, Florida — we had a deal. Anxious to pick up the car, I booked a plane ticket to Daytona Beach, Florida the following weekend and couldn’t wait to go get it. The weekend rolled around and I was on the first flight out. At the airport I was met by the officer and we talked cars while he drove me 30 minutes to his house near the coast (no Uber back then!). We pulled up to the house and he opened the garage revealing the shiny black Vette with red interior — beautiful. Once the paperwork was signed, I was in the car off to hit the open road in Florida. Life was good. Family, personal, and professional couldn’t be better. I thought I was indestructible. After being on the interstate for two hours I called my Pardot cofounder Adam to catch up on a few things. With the countryside rolling by and the cell phone pinned to my ear it happened like slow motion in a bad movie. A large tire tread peeled off the tractor trailer in front of me and headed right for my newly acquired car. After glancing the front of the hood, the tread smashed into the windshield directly in front of my eyes. Now, there was a hole the size of my fist in the windshield four feet from my face. The tractor trailer didn’t stop; no one was around to see it or help. I quickly told Adam I gotta go and hung up the phone while pulling off on the side of the road. I was taking things for granted. I wasn’t practicing gratitude. Life was going well and I thought I was on top. I needed to slow down. I needed to be thankful. Ultimately, everything was fine. I wasn’t injured, the car was repaired, and life continued along. Only, I was different. I was more grounded. I was more thankful. from https://davidcummings.org/2018/12/22/practice-gratitude-life-comes-at-you-fast/ I love answering support tickets. And - even though my team hates this - I try to do that every day. No, really, ask our customers. Nothing gives me a better understanding of how things are going, than spending an hour or two talking to our clients. But the most frequent reaction to a "CEO" in my signature is: "CEO", really? Wait, how big is your company exactly? I get it - not everyone's happy to buy from a "one-man-band" company. I even tried removing the "CEO" from my signature for a while - pretending I'm just an "Alex from techsupport" - to stop freaking people out, but then restored it back. Look at this differently - the only reason people freak out is because a CEO/founder's reply to a ticket is very uncommon. In fact, it's so uncommon, they jump to a very sad conclusion "they must be really small and desperate". That's how low the bar is in customer service. But once you address that first objection it's nothing but a smooth ride from there. Here are the "pros" of founders involved in support (I'll cover the "cons" in another post): Dogfooding on steroids - you're not just using your own product, you're in constant contact with people who use your product in ways you wouldn't imagine. And that stupid design decision you made last week? Here, have some frigging feedback in your face right away. Authority - people are more... uhm... sensible when they know they're talking to a founder. Helps a lot when dealing with angry feedback or when you're about to say "no" to a feature request. Helps with churn - nothing helps you win a loyal customer better than a founder willing to solve their problem. Vision aware - you, as a founder, know your product (and where it's going) better than anyone else. You know when to say "no" to a customer, but also - when to say "yes" and maybe even shift your whole vision of the product. A dozen times I found myself revising our whole roadmap or marketing positioning based on one support ticket. Quality - a founder typically provides better support. Even if the founder actually hates doing it. As a founder, you, of all people, know exactly that providing good customer service is not just about getting a "5 star/smiley face" rating after closing a ticket. Here's a free advice. As a founder/CEO you probably read a lot about "customer development", "client surveys", "net promoter scores" and "focus groups". Well, before diving into all that crap just spend a day or two answering frigging support emails. It's not for everyone thoughOnce it stops being fun - hand it over to a professional Support can be annoying. Customers can be irritating. If you find yourself cringing when you think about all the unanswered tickets waiting for you - it's time to hand it over to a dedicated support person (or your cofounder!). I admit, a founder is way overqualified for this job, if it's just a job, not fun. And since the quality of customer support is directly correlated with your revenue a founders burnout can and will have impact on your business. It's time to hand it over when it becomes a burden, if it becomes one from https://www.jitbit.com/news/3300-customer-support-by-founders/ |