Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Is it good to describe your business as X for Y?

“Don’t describe your business as X for Y” (Alex Iskold @Techstars)

vs.

“One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It’s like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It’s like an answering service, but for email. It’s eBay for jobs. This form of description is wonderfully efficient. Don’t worry that it will make your idea seem “derivative.” Some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas no one realized could be combined.” (YCombinator website).

What do you think?

Answer 3328

The difficulty here is really in the way the problem was framed. The problem with the formulation tends to be that it’s often not as clear as the founder thinks. “It’s like Dropbox for pet owners” doesn’t necessarily shed any light on what the company does.

That said, this part of your pitch is only to succinctly explain what you do, so if an “X for Y” formulation turns out to be the clearest explanation, go for it. Just be careful that it really does explain things, or you will be falling into the X for Y trap.

Answer 3343

I asked the question to Alex Iskold himself, and here is his answer! ;)enter image description here

Answer 3344

For what it’s worth, a business is usually best described by a benefit it provides to who, which is to say by a unique selling proposition.

Examples:

The idea is to have a line that an average 12-year old can make sense of and generate a “Tell me more?” type of response. The “We help [target] [action verb] [benefit]” format is a good one, but not the only one.

The pitfalls to avoid are labels (“I’m a software developer”), features (“I’ve 10 years of experience doing software development”), and processes (“I do Agile-driven software development”). These things are of zero interest whatsoever to leads and prospects who have a problem to solve and are shopping around for an answer or a solution to that problem. Put the focus on what your client will get, not on you.

But that’s admittedly in the context of interacting with leads and prospects. When talking to an investor, I’d gather that much of the same applies with a few twists, though.

Firstly, note that the prospect in a VC pitch actually is the investor. As such, the core of your lengthy presentation must get the benefit to them across, aka you’re here to make them money. In this respect, your startup is a mere process and bundled with features. And that’s indeed what they’ll be focused on. But don’t forget to discreetly deliver the actual message (“We’re going to make you money”) in a way or another over the course of your pitch. Because like any prospect, they’re shopping around for solutions to problems that they need to solve.

Secondly, and more saliently, your elevator pitch should make it clear what you’re about, which is to say what problem you solve for who (and ideally how). Doing so conveys how you intend to make money, and bring the listener’s attention to why you have a chance to succeeding. And in this sense I’d side with Alex Iskold.

Take all of this with a grain of salt though, as I’ve never pitched an investor myself. (The closest I ever got to VCs was delivering turn-key software that helps VCs do their accounting and expedite their reporting to investors. <– That’s a pretty good elevator pitch, btw.)

Answer 3334

When you are starting something new it is often quite hard to share your vision with others. An analogy of the form “X for Y” should be used a tool to describe your vision in a simpler way. Using an existing popular service or company as reference is a good way to set context for others and start the conversation. But your full pitch should go beyond the analogy and hopefully explain the unique aspects of your business without relating only to existing companies.

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