Kill the Goddamn Buzzwords and Give Me a Use Case

Recently I’ve been reviewing a bunch of startup pitches (over 150) for a couple of different things, and it’s frustrating to see potentially good ideas and quality entrepreneurs get ignored too quickly because their pitches suck. It’s like resumes with typos – there have to be some basic filtering mechanisms for written pitches, otherwise reviewers would be overwhelmed. Incidentally, my feelings on this apply to face-to-face or phone presentations as well as written ones.

One of my simple filters is this: Use Cases vs. Buzzwords.

Investors need to be able to instantly understand your value proposition. Even if they don’t agree with the value proposition, you have to spell it out very clearly, otherwise you’ll get junked immediately. A value proposition doesn’t need buzzwords. Buzzwords are almost always focused on you – the startup – and not on the most important person that deserves attention in your pitch: the user or customer. Buzzwords rarely reflect the value to customers. Words like “revolutionary” or “patent-pending” — do those things really matter to users? What about “next generation” or “innovative”. These are all words focused on you, the startup.

Scrap all the buzzwords and get to the point. Most investors have seen hundreds of pitches, you’re not going to wow them with lengthy, meaningless descriptions.

Instead, focus on use cases.

How will the product be used? And I don’t mean in broad terms – but literally describe how it gets used.

Who benefits? Why do they benefit?

How does your product fit into your customer’s daily life?

Use cases are practical. They’re also a great form of storytelling. They allow an investor to envision a user actually using your product. Hopefully they can relate to the use case (or know someone that can) which is going to connect them immediately to what you’re doing. Without use cases, there’s very little chance they can relate at all, and every investor invests in stuff they understand.

If you can’t describe a compelling use case you may not have a compelling value proposition. It also shows a potential lack of understanding of your customer. And if that’s the case you’ve got bigger issues than a bad pitch. Use cases get right to the nitty gritty of your startup, but too often they’re obfuscated in pitches. Instead too many pitches are filled with long-winded diatribes on how you will fundamentally and radically shift the ever-evolving landscape of cloud-based web gadgetry through patent-pending algorithms that match a broad-base of users with the intent-driven goals they’re socially connected to.

Quick side note: DO NOT put the word “cloud” in your pitch unless you actually understand something about cloud computing. Hosting something on the Web does not count.

Use cases. Use ‘em.

You Have to Love the Startup Process

The process of starting a company is messy. It has massive ups and downs, tons of uncertainty and a significant portion of time is spent doing things you don’t know how to do, or don’t like doing. But that’s the Startup Process. Either you embrace it and love it or you get out.

Don’t expect that most of your time as a founder will be spent doing things you love (i.e. building your product). Building a great product is just assumed. Ultimately everything hinges on the product, but so much more has to happen successfully for a great product to be realized. And all of those “other things” are generally things startup founders don’t want to do.

Here are some examples:

  • Raising Capital – It’s time to change the way we describe raising capital as “a distraction.” You need to look at it as much more than that. No startup survives without money. If you have to raise it from external sources then that becomes pretty damn important. The lights can’t stay on otherwise. Very few people like raising capital, and first-timers can’t believe how much time it takes away from “doing what they should be doing.” But enough of that. If you’re raising capital because you need it to improve your chances of success, then do it. Don’t complain about it and embrace it.
  • Hiring – This typically comes later in the process, but it’s very sad how little effort most startup founders put to it. Except without the best people, you likely won’t succeed. So again, hiring top talent is a prerequisite for success (like raising capital) and yet it’s looked at as a distraction. It’s not. It’s core to improving your startup’s chance of success.
  • Legal – You may delay formal legal stuff for awhile when you’re very early on and just investigating the potential for your startup, but don’t ignore doing things right when it comes to corporate structure, employee agreements, share structure, etc. This stuff can (and will) come to bite you in the ass later. Even in a mild way, if you don’t have your legal ducks in a row when you go to raise money or hire people, it’s troublesome and wastes more time.

You don’t have to love all of these things, but you have to love the overall process – the Startup Process. You have to love the experience, or at minimum accept the realities of your situation (you don’t get to code by yourself in a room for 12 hours a day) and make sure these sorts of things are top priorities, not distractions or irritations. They’re a necessary and critical part of succeeding – so get to ‘em.

What Role Does Ego Play in Entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs need a very healthy ego to succeed. Many might be self-effacing and humble, but there still has to be a deep-seeded, positive sense of self and ego. Some might call it drive. That’s part of it. Courage and belief in one’s own abilities is also important. Natural leadership qualities and a desire to lead are driven by ego.

Ego is important. Without a healthy ego entrepreneurs don’t have the necessary internal reserves to survive the daily rigors of startup life.

But I’m generally not attracted to huge egos without the parallel humbleness that should come with it and the recognition that any real success involves multiple factors. It’s very rare that one person can take all the credit (or all the blame!) When a successful person openly recognizes that other factors impacted their success — luck, for example – I know that person has a healthy ego, the kind of ego that helped drive that person to succeed without putting them over the edge.

Those are the types of people I want to work with. People who believe they’ll be successful no matter what, but don’t have to flaunt that on a regular basis. And when they are successful, they recognize it wasn’t exclusively of their own doing. And when they’re not successful, they accept that and move on.

Far too often, egos get in the way of success. It gets ugly. It gets personal. That’s when ego is at its worse; “he said, she said” or “BSDs” that can’t work together (if you want to know what that acronym means, just ask.) Egos at that level need to be put aside for the greater good.

You either believe you can be hugely successful or you don’t. If you don’t, you need to look inside yourself and figure out why. It might just be there, a tiny spark of ego just waiting to explode. If you do believe you can be hugely successful, that’s great, you’ve got the makings of an entrepreneur. But don’t get caught in your own ego. Don’t get overwhelmed by your “greatness”. Use that inherent quality of ego (which too few people truly possess) and leverage it.

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Ben Yoskovitz
I'm VP Product at GoInstant.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). MY BIO >>

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