A Hard Truth Lots of Entrepreneurs Don't Like to Be Told
Entrepreneur Office Hours - Issue #219
It’s time for some tough love. But first, let me provide context for where this tough love is coming from.
This past week I met with over a dozen new entrepreneurs. Every one of them spent the majority of our conversations telling me about their products.
Every. Single. One.
And they’re not alone. Most new entrepreneurs love talking about what they’ve built. And I completely understand why. Entrepreneurs care about their products. Products are fun. They’re exciting. They’re innovative. They’re world-changing. And blah, blah, blah.
But you need to stop making every conversation about your product because the people you’re talking with don’t care about your product. They care about themselves.
To be clear, I don’t mean this in a bad way. As-in I don’t mean anyone is being overly selfish. Instead, I mean that we all live inside of our own heads, and, as a result, we all can’t help but see things and care about things from our own perspectives. This means when people hear about your product, they don’t care about why you think your product is cool or valuable or interesting or revolutionary. They don’t want technical details, they don’t need to know how it works, and they don’t need to hear you nerd-out about how you built it. All they care about is what your product can do for them.
To be effective at getting people to care about your startup and whatever it’s selling, you need to understand who your talking with, what that person values, and figure out how to make the conversation relevant to that person.
For example, when you’re talking with potential investors, focus on the growth and your ability to capture an enormous market opportunity. After all, that’s what investors care about.
When you’re talking with potential customers, focus on explaining how your product solves their need.
When you’re talking with potential employees, focus on how working at your startup is a great stepping stone in their career trajectories.
Even when you’re talking to someone as relatively unimportant as a random Internet startup advice guru like me, focus on the problems you’re having with your startup because I only get value when I’m able to provide meaningful advice.
Are you starting to understand what I mean?
If you’re one of those entrepreneurs who spends the entire time every meeting talking about your startup, you’re pushing away the people you’re talking with. Worst of all, you probably don’t realize it. You probably think every conversation is amazing and people love what you because they just spent an hour listening to you talk about all the cool, amazing things your startup does.
I get it. I was 100% one of those entrepreneurs. I could talk about my startup with people for hours, and I always came away from those meetings being completely sure people were as impressed by what I’d built as I was.
But I was wrong. People were just being nice and listening to me ramble about what I’d built. In truth, they couldn’t wait for the meeting to be over.
Don’t be like me when I was a new founder. Don’t make every startup conversation about yourself. If you want your startup to be successful, make sure all your startup conversations are about the people you’re talking to and, most importantly, how your startup can help make their lives better.
-Aaron
This week’s new articles…
I Started to Love Networking Once I Finally Learned the Right Way to Do It
Are you one of those entrepreneurs who has the wrong mindset about networking? If so, you need some new perspective on what it is and why it’s so important.
The Hardest Choices You’ll Make as an Entrepreneur Won’t Be About Your Startup
Some things in life are bigger and more important than entrepreneurship. You’ll know them when you encounter them.
Office Hours Q&A
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QUESTION:
Hey Aaron!
Hope you're doing awesome! I'm just diving into the startup world, and honestly, it's a bit overwhelming. 🙈
I’d really just like to know what's the number one piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting out? Also, any tips on getting noticed by investors?
Thanks a ton for doing this Q&A and your newsletter. Really looking forward to your insights!
Cheers,
Amir
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The hardest part about giving my “number one” piece of startup advice is that I feel like the answer changes daily.
In fact, I’m almost certain I’ve already answered this question in my weekly Q&A, and I probably had a different answer. In other words, if you’re someone with a great memory, please don’t write to tell me I wrote something else 12 weeks ago… =)
Also, I should add that my advice would change for founders based on the stage they’re at. In this case, you’ve mentioned being in the very beginning of your startup journey, so I’m going to tailor my advice to a new entrepreneur as opposed to someone five years into things.
If I’m talking to a first-time founder, the number one piece of advice I’m going to give is this:
Set a clear goal and purpose for yourself.
In other words, be sure to ask yourself questions like: Why am I taking this entrepreneurial journey? Why are you building what you’re building? What are you hoping to accomplish? What’s a good outcome? What’s a bad outcome? And so on.
I call this your “north star.” It’s the thing that’s always there to guide you.
Once you have a clear north star, everything else becomes easier because your north star helps you make decisions. Specifically, you can always ask yourself: “Does this choice help me get closer to my goal?” If yes, continue. If no, don’t continue.
And by the way, the reason I’m telling you to set a north star is because most entrepreneurs tend to be wandering aimlessly through the startup wilderness. They’ve got a vague sense of what they’re trying to do and why, but they don’t have clear directionality. Without that clear directionality, it’s easy to just keep “existing” in the entrepreneurial space without actually accomplishing anything productive.
In contrast, having a north star (and making decisions based on it) helps ensure you’re constantly making forward progress.
Oh… and as for your question about getting noticed by investors, my best advice is to not worry about investors. Focus on creating something that creates real value, and focus on getting traction for it. If you do those things, getting investors won’t be a problem.
Got startup questions of your own? Reply to this email with whatever you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer!
