09/10/2019 How to describe your startup idea.

- Gua - Medium

Who cares your idea and who is watchin’?

How to describe your startup idea.

Gua Follow
Jan 14, 2015 · 3 min read

Is it possible to describe your idea with two sentence? even one ?

A strong description of your idea has to stand out and it has to catch someone’s
attention. It has to get them to say — A Ha!, that’s interesting. Tell me more. Lets have
a look what the biggest names from Silicon Wally are reccomending.

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09/10/2019 How to describe your startup idea. - Gua - Medium

*need a little help, maybe feedback ? Lets chat on twitter @gtabidze

. . .

1. The Founder Institute’s One-Sentence Pitch Format (one sentence)

Startup name,

is developing (a defined offering)

to help (a target audience)

(solve a problem)

(with a secret sauce)

Example : My company, the Founder Institute, is developing a training and mentoring

program to help entrepreneurs learning a new startup create meaningful an enduring
technology companies with shared equity that encourages peer support.

2. 500 Startups

We solve [problem] by providing[advantage], to help [target] accomplish[target’s goal].

Depending on the stage you’ve reached, you might follow it up with a second sentence
about your business model:

We make money by charging [customers] to get [benefit]

Example : “We make companies more efficient by providing a live feed of comments and
questions, so employees can find answers more quickly. We make money by charging
companies that want administrative control on their employee networks.”

3. — Describe ideas by answering these questions (c) MITx15390x:

* What is the problem you want to solve

* Who experiences that problem

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* How you want to solve that problem

* Why this is a better solution

For example: “I want to solve the problem of clean water scarcity in developing
countries. This problem is experienced by people in rural areas where water supply
and treatment infrastructure doesn’t exist. I want to solve that problem by providing
village-scale pumps that would give every village a way to draw on clean water from
underground sources. This would be a better solution because it would be easy and
quick to install, it would be simple to operate, it would not require large investments in
infrastructure, it would last long, and rural entrepreneurs could even earn money by
selling clean water.” *

4. Geof Moore’s Value proposition Statement

For (target customer)

who (statement of the need or opportunity)

our (product/service name) is (product category)

that (statement of benefit)

For example: For non-technical marketers who struggle to find return on investment in
social media. Our product is a web-based analytics software that translates engagement
metrics into actionable revenue metrics.

5. Steve Blanks’ XYZ

We help X do Y doing Z

For example: We help non-technical marketers discover return on investment in social

media by turning engagement metrics into revenue metrics.

6. Petrick Vlaskovit & Branet Cooper’s CPS

Customer (who your customer is)

Problem (what problem you’re solving for the customer)

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Solution (what is your solution for the problem)

For example: Customer — We believe our best customers are small and medium-sized
businesses markets. Problem — Who cannot easily measure campaign ROI because
existing solutions are too expensive, complicated to deploy, display a dizzying array of
non-actionable charts. Solution — Low cost, easy to deploy analytic system designed for
non technical markets who need actionable metrics.

. . .

Remember : to write great startup idea description you have to set words wisely and test it
with your potential customers/investors.

Before you go, check this out — In 1 minute, Slack founder will make you rethink how to
sell innovation

Need a little help? maybe feedback ? Lets chat on twitter @gtabidze

Startup Idea Pitching Elevator Pitch Entrepreneurship

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