now maybe you've heard this bad lawyer joke how can you tell when a lawyer is lying their lips are moving well the same is true when it comes to entrepreneurs and pitching how can you tell when an entrepreneur is pitching their lips are moving now pitching is a key skill all entrepreneurs need to learn because you don't just pitch for investment you pitch to acquire customers advisers and even recruit co-founders and team members but the mistake many entrepreneurs make is trying to pitch their ideas the exact same way to every one different audiences share different
worldviews and require different types of pitches to get them to see what you see so in this video I'm going to share the different audience worldviews of a startup which will help you craft better pitches and secure buyin from your key stakeholders hi there if you're new to this channel my name is Ash Moria I'm an entrepreneur and author and the creator of the onepage business modeling tool lean canvas on this channel I share systematic strategies and techniques for launching and growing a startup so let's start with what a worldview is in his groundbreaking book
all marketers are liars Seth Cen describes a worldview as the set of rules values beliefs and biases people bring to a situation good marketing is not about changing a person's worldview but rather framing your story in terms of their pre-existing worldview the same is true in entrepreneurship good entrepreneurship is not about brute forcing your idea or solution but rather framing a business model story in terms of your audience's pre-existing worldview your audience in this case comprises of investors customers advisors team members and even competitors I'll illustrate these different worldviews of a startup using a onepage
lean canvas which also happens to be a great business model storytelling tool so let's begin with the story We Tell ourselves when we get hit with an idea what we see most clearly is the solution or product that we want to build I show this as the awesome box on the lean canvas we spend a disproportionate amount of time discussing the uniqueness of our product features or its underlying technology and we believe that if only we could bring this solution or product to life everything else would work itself out but building a product takes resources
so what keeps us up at night is establishing enough runway in order to bring our solution to life to do that you might have to turn to investors but investors don't really care about your product or solution they care about one thing a business model story that promises them a return on their investment within a set time frame more specifically this is what they want to know how big is the market opportunity they don't care about who your customers are but how many in other words how big is the market the next thing they care
about is how will you make money they want to understand the intersection of your cost structure and revenue streams to gauge your profitability and growth potential and finally they want to know how you will defend against copycats because anything worth copying will be copied what unpaired advantages do you possess now or will acquire in the future to deter competition but what gets investors attention above everything else is traction if you walk into an Investor's office with the beginnings of a hockey stick curve you'll trigger a paoan response they'll sit you down and try to understand
the rest of your business model story so what is traction traction is evidence that people other than yourself your team and your mom care about your idea the people that count here of course are customers and so traction is nothing more than a measure of your products engagement with your customers and any traction is better than no traction and so it naturally follows and before trying to win over investors maybe you should try to win over a few customers first so how do you do that what do customers really care about now customers too don't
care about your product or solution either they care about the problems or obstacles standing in their way of achieving a desired outcome or getting some job done you probably didn't wake up today with a burning desire to buy some random app but if you've been struggling with a problem like say finding a better or more fulfilling job you might have signed up for a job listing service that used the headline we help you find your dream job in 30 days or we give you your money back this headline is an example of a promise or
unique value proposition and it's the first thing that customers care about a good unique valy proposition or uvp doesn't communicate how your solution works but what using your solution does for your customers now in order to craft a good unique value proposition you need to understand who's it for while it's tempting to position your product for everybody when you try to reach everybody you end up reaching no one the way you stand out from the crowd isn't by going broad but narrow you do this by focusing not on your broader Market but early adopters who
are a much smaller and highly motivated Subs segment of your overall customer segment The Next Step here is identifying what problem or obstacles these early adopters are struggling with and anchoring your unique value proposition or promise against that if your promise connects you now have permission to tell your early adopters about your solution typically through through a demo the art of the demo is showing the smallest thing possible that helps your early adopters visualize how they go from point A riddled with their problems to point B where your solution removes these problems if you can
deliver a convincing demo the only thing left to address is what you want in return I show this as the value currency exchange captured under revenue streams on a lean canvas now in a direct business model this may be a direct money exchange however in multi-sided models like an ad driven product like Facebook or Google search this may instead be a derivative currency like attention or data which is converted to money through a secondary transaction in this case with advertisers the investor pitch and the customer pitch are the two big business model stories to tackle
first you always want to lead with your strongest foot forward with investors this is with a strong traction lead and with customers this is with a strong promise or unique value proposition lead the next worldview is a bit different we all need people other than ourselves to guide us in our startup Journeys call our BS and Hold Us externally accountable this is where advisors come in good advisors bring a unique worldview to the conversation but unlike the others their worldviews are driven by their past experiences strengths and interests when faced with an internal startup problem
good ideas can come from anywhere and so the key here to building a good ad Advisory Board is to surround yourself with a diverse set of advisors and be as open and honest with them as possible practicing success theater with them where you only share good news may result in a pat of the back but it misses out on a tremendous learning opportunity communicating effectively with advisers requires using a learning versus pitching frame and you can say that this is less of a pitch and more of a transparent open progress update when talking with advisers
I find it best to provide a quick business model progress update in 5 to 10 minutes using a lean canvas and your metrics as visual storytelling AIDS then I shut up and listen I listen for objections and possible solutions to my problems without getting defensive or trying to change their mind now no one has a crystal ball and you alone own your business model your job isn't to blindly follow all the advice you receive no matter who it's coming from but to rigorously test the most promising ideas and make them your out now there's one
more story to cover the competitor story we also have conversations with competitors these are not your nice sitd Downs or coffee type conversations rather these conversations test your marketing pricing and positioning stories in your business model in other words they test your unfair Advantage I put this one at the end because too many Founders prematurely pay attention to their competitors too early this is predicated on the fact that your supposed comp competition has a clue what if they are a startup in the early stages like you are and maybe as clueless as you are at
the beginning simply positioning against the competition guarantees a different approach but not necessarily the right approach your true competition then is not determined by who you might think they are but rather who your customers think they are this is something you uncover from your customers or more specifically your early adopters your true competition is whatever existing alternative your early adopter are currently using to get the job done that you are now trying to displace and they belong in the existing Alternatives box so hopefully I've convinced you that startups are conversations and your true job as
an entrepreneur is to systematically drisk your startup through a series of conversations each box on the lean canvas represents a different facet of risk that you uncover through these conversations or stories now there are four fundamental pitches or stories every founder should Master the first one is the elevator story pitch you use this to provide a 30second overview of your big idea and get anyone to ask for more think of this as the movie trailer for your product the second one is the founder story pitch you use this to share your origin story and build
credibility think of this as your personal Yu for this idea positioning the third one is the customer story pitch you use this to acquire customers now while job of the elevator pitch is to earn attention this pitch is the Workhorse that earns trust and turns prospects into paying customers and finally we have the business model story pitch you use this one to tell your startup's business model story to recruit co-founders attract advisors and secure investors for your idea now the elevator pitch is the foundational pitch that I recommend everyone start with because all others build
upon it if you'd like to learn how to craft a compelling 30-second El elevator pitch you should check out this video thanks for watching and until next time take care
