Category: startup communities

Too many events have judges who haven’t taken the time to learn about the startups they are judging. This could be because the organizer didn’t send any information before the event, or because the judges didn’t put the effort in beforehand. Whatever it is, it happens too often.

That means that it’s up to the startup pitching to use a format to make it easy for the judges to quickly understand their work. You can’t affect the experience the judges have in your area of focus, but you can at least make it easy for them.

At a recent event, one pitch I heard recently was for I thought a spectacular product. They guy had already talked to customers, made a prototype and had a business model that I liked. He just needed to express that simply. Combined with a judge who who didn’t understand the industry and focused on one small point of the entrepreneur’s plan, the communication broke down. It looked like the worst pitch of that night, but I think it was really the best business.

Meanwhile, the best pitch that night was from a startup that had not yet been formed. No real work had been done, it was just at the concept stage.

The world is not a pitch event but it is valuable knowing how to maneuver in that environment. So whenever you attend a pitch event, learn from the presenters. And whenever you’re there to pitch, assume that you need to educate the audience a little.

The greatest marketing stunt I ever saw came from a fundamentalist religious group called Family Radio. I knew about these guys over a year before Judgment Day (received a flier from a convert) but I was amazed at how much awareness they eventually got for their “event” (for lack of a better word).

Using nothing but their daily radio show and dedicated volunteers, without any modern social networking that I saw, they got the whole country to think about the end of the world.

I know you’re probably thinking Family Radio wasn’t a marketing stunt — they actually believed the world was ending. But for pure audacity, has any startup ever come close?

Businesses can learn from them.

Similar to the Family Radio crowd, while running a startup I managed to get a mix of people to believe, follow and even pay for our service, but only in pale comparison to their success: tens of millions of dollars raised, a wide-spread and active community and people who are so devoted they took it upon themselves to dress up, carry placards and spread their message.

Every week I meet smart people who start companies with audacious goals, but none as audacious as predicting the date and time of Judgment Day and the end of the world. And yet, as crazy as their goals were, and even though no earthquakes and fire consumed the earth, Family Radio was quite the launch success — so what if what came next didn’t work. Thousands of people believed in the end and spent their time and money promoting it around the world. No A/B testing, no customer development and no beta launch (well, maybe one. Their previous Judgment Day prediction was for 1994).

As far as I observed, this is what they did:
– Held a daily radio show that included repeated instructions about the end of the world (dedication to daily work and dedication through tough times)

– Provided a really clear, simple message about their beliefs (targeted a growing conservative fundamentalist market niche)

– Understood their audience (didn’t build a fancy website or mobile app which wouldn’t matter to their audience anyway, since they listen to the radio or podcasts)

– Built no social networking integration on their site (their members found ways to organize without it)

– Stated an audacious and clear goal (got everyone excited about one really big thing, not many little things)

I want to build a startup that can appeal to people like that. But be right.

While they did a lot of damage, for their marketing success they deserve some respect.


[this post written earlier, reposted here]

It’s natural for people who spend most of their waking hours working on a startup to want to hang out with other people doing the same. But this is a really bad idea when it comes to building your product.First, startup people are not normal. Face it. Your customers are most likely not other startup people. Building something that the startup community will find cool will only get you so far with the rest of the world.

I’m not saying don’t go to any startup events. I’m saying they shouldn’t be the main events you go to. If you’re building a food related startup, you should talk to non-technical foodies who might be your users. Talk to chefs, restaurant managers, street stall owners, food bloggers, farmers. If you’re building an educational startup, hang out with teachers, principals, even students. What is their life like? What do they need?

One of the guys who took Startups Unplugged did just that for his Electronic Medical Records service. He met doctors and understood how the current EMR solutions work. Afterward, he ended up completely changing the way he was designing his service. By his admission, he never would have figured that out if he didn’t go meet doctors.

Get out there and talk to users.

I later wrote this about Startup Pitch Events. Hope you enjoy it.