You should be able to, you need to be able to tell me what you\u2019re building, in your own words. If it\u2019s a better scooter, or a video game about lasagna, that\u2019s fine. But express it as simply and carefully as you can. No buzzwords, no fancy talk. Just straight shooting. If you\u2019re building a word processor with minimalist design, say that. Don\u2019t call it a \u201cdistraction free content creation workspace”.<\/p>\n
You have to be able to explain how. How are you approaching your product? What\u2019s your methodology? Do you have something ready to go? Have you invested your own money in it?<\/p>\n
Probably more crucially, why are you doing this? Have you been testing it before building it, have you researched it, do you know that there\u2019s a market? Do you know people want it? Is there a need? Does it solve a problem? What does it do better than competing products, and is that enough?<\/p>\n
These questions are going to be hard to answer. That\u2019s a fact. I\u2019d be worried if they weren\u2019t. But being an entrepreneur isn\u2019t about having a smooth, easy ride, and it\u2019s sure as shit not about doing random crap without explaining yourself. That\u2019s not going to work out for you.<\/p>\n
If you can answer these questions, people are more likely to be interested in you. But even more importantly, you\u2019ll have a handle on what you\u2019re doing, and more of a clue about whether or not it\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n
Because just coming up with something isn\u2019t important, coming up with something that has a point a purpose and person in mind is the hard part. And you won\u2019t know whether or not your idea has legs until you try and answer what, how and why.<\/p>\n
As I said before, if I was a charitable man, I\u2019d think these founders are only struggling to express what they do. But the fact is, I\u2019m not that charitable.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n So I think a lot of these founders have no idea what, why or how they\u2019re building anything, and all they\u2019ve done is highlight a couple apps or products that work and mashed them together in the hope of a payday. <\/span><\/p>\n Am I being too cynical? Maybe.<\/span><\/p>\n But what else am I supposed to think if you can\u2019t tell me what you\u2019re up to in your own words?<\/p>\n Learn how to explain what you do, learn how to answer those three questions and then talk to people. Nobody cares about your product that just sounds topical or in vogue because you\u2019ve mashed up a bunch of crap.<\/p>\n And nobody cares about buzzwords. People want simple explanations.<\/p>\n I think we\u2019re scared to make things sound simple. As though we\u2019re not completely certain about our ideas or our passions, so we try to make them sound incredibly complex and nuanced in order to make them seem more legitimate. That\u2019s where 50 page marketing plans come from, when all you need is\u00a0one to five.<\/p>\n But simple is good. Simple answers are good. Simple doesn\u2019t waste time and it doesn\u2019t confuse the issue. Simple is what makes the difference between me giving a shit and switching my brain off.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m more likely to write about, or be interested in, an average product with a great explanation and definition than an amazing product that I can\u2019t understand. It\u2019s that straightforward.<\/p>\n This piece was first published on Medium.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You don\u2019t need old paradigms and buzzwords to explain your startup – the smartest people in the world don\u2019t use<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}