The One-line Elevator Pitch

by maria | Sep 4, 2015 | Uncategorized

It seems that the one-line elevator pitch continues to weave itself into every pitch, presentation, conversation and/or casual meetup. There are many that believe we should be able to summarize everything and everyone in one sentence. This is probably due to the fact that we live in a world of instant gratification, are short of time and of course apt at the 140 character status updates or sharing of wisdom.

There is something magical about “15,000 songs in your pocket”, the famous line used to explain to the world what the Apple iPod did. Though its success was more than the explanation, it was incredible to see the simplicity in the message, helping people to instantly understand two important selling points of the iPod – its physical size and its virtual memory. Until then, most potential customers of mp3 players had no idea what MB and GB meant or what it amounted to. “15,000 songs” was easily understood and the message was simple – to all effects, you could now have your entire music collection on this one device that fitted in practically any pocket.

However, somewhere along the line, the startup ecosystem has forced the one-liners into the mix, making it a headache for most founders and some comic relief for innocent bystanders. It should be no surprise that one-liners actually emerged in standup comedy.

In 2013, Chris Eleftheriadis wrote a blog post for Vision Mobile, a leading research company in the app economy, titled “The Art of One-line Pitching: A Study of AngelList”, whereby Chris shares his insights on how startups communicate their value proposition to investors.

One of the greatest challenges today for startups is that they may seem to address one problem, yet they use a variety of cross platform techniques such as mobile, social, e-commerce, media, review systems, etc.

The purpose of the one-liner is to garner immediate interest in what you are about to present. One false move and you might as well be talking to yourself. Get it right and you’ve set the stage complete with an attentive audience. It can be that cut throat.

Understandably, many founders obsess with finding the right combination of words to accurately describe their future resorting to comparisons with established and successful startups – “The AirBnb for students”. Yet many mentors are against this as it shows a lack of originality and may actually taint the pitch or worse, disengage those on the receiving end. Referencing other companies is always a gamble because it piggybacks on already successful companies when the core idea should stand out on its own. Like most of the decisions you will have to take – make it yours and feel comfortable with it.

The study set out to find the most popular companies referenced and their insights are quite revealing. They found more than 60 companies referenced by the 1700 startups in the study, the top 10 accounting for nearly half of all references on AngelList.

Though LinkedIn topped the list, which seems surprising to me as the majority of the startups I come across are B2C and not B2B, you probably won’t be surprised to see Pinterest, eBay, Facebook, Yelp, Instagram, Groupon, Airbnb, Youtube and Amazon on that list. The most interesting part of the study is the 9 types of pitch references.

1. The most commonly found references:
   – X for Y: Yammer for Education.
   – X meets Y: Yelp meets Hipster meets Foursquare:
   – The X of Y: The Pinterest of online dating

2. Comic, ironic and/or sarcastic:
   – Facebook for the dead
   – Instagram for basketball junkies
   – Think “Netflix for Grandma” + “Help, I’ve fallen and I cant get up”
   – Yelp for medical marijuana.

3. Though I suspect this is the least effective, it was the third most widely used reference – “we’re doing same thing as them but better”. Though it may play to the comfort of similarity, it’s a huge risk:
   – Better than Amazon’s customer experience for any Brand
   – LinkedIn on Steroids
   – Search engine that beats Kayak.com’s fares by up to 80%.

4. In a world of mathematics, this one is for the geeks:
   – (Google x Facebook x Amazon) + (Universal Reviews)
   – Ebay+Soundcloud
   – Instagram + Trips = …

For more examples, check out the post here.

So. Are you ready to get started? If you need help to validate your idea and learn how to ignite your startup you should apply to Beta-Start by September the 13th.

Food for thought from the conclusion of the article:

“With 95% of referenced startups being marketplaces, the mechanisms for creating and capturing value in today’s digital world are governed by what we call ecosystem economics. Today’s innovation lies more in business models than technology.”

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The X factor of all successful pre-accelerator startups

by maria | Aug 23, 2015 | Uncategorized

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. This might well be one of the biggest cliché ever, but can you denied it?

Choosing to be an entrepreneur is not one of those easy options as all the veterans will tell you how tough the journey is, how your parents will think you’re crazy and encourage you to go for something “serious” instead of taking unwise risks.

This is mainly why one of the greatest capacities of an entrepreneur is to be persistent and resilient and be allowed to do everything but to give up.

Pre-accelerators exist not only for you to test your idea and validate the first draft of a business model, but also for you to get a small taste of what the entrepreneur journey looks like and to understand if you’re up for it. A pre-accelerator is just an incredible, crazy and unique experience that will clarify you about a lot of assumptions you may have on entrepreneurship, on how to start a business and be your own boss.

You might end up thinking that this is not your thing, you might end up re-thinking you original idea and improving your business skills or you might end up getting invested and becoming internationally recognized as it is the case of some of Beta-start alumni. These guys have 3 main things in common: they’ve made the decision to try, they haven’t given up and they knew how to choose a pre-accelerator.

PharmAssistant

Diogo Ortega is the CEO of PharmAssistant – a startup that produces both software and hardware that assist in the correct consumption of pharmaceuticals by patients. Their mission: no one will ever forget to take a pill. The idea emerged after Diogo’s grandma accidentally taking a pill of his grandfather.

Diogo says that Beta-start was a turning point for him as he came across the pre-accelerator when deciding he wanted a project of his own and Beta-start gave him and his team the tools to make it real.

They then got into Beta-i’s acceleration program – Lisbon Challenge – where their exposure grew bigger and reached the known pharmaceutical Bayer who partnered with them to produce the product. PharmAssistant got invested over €50K last year and is currently developing its prototype.

SimpleTax

SimpleTax was once Modelo 3, an online platform that helps taxpayers preparing the Portuguese IRS declaration aiming to get the best reimbursement. After Beta-start, it evolved to become a free, web-based tax software that helps you easily find the most savings and ensures you file an accurate tax return, no matter how complicated your affairs are. They’re now based in London.

The problem was first approached when Celso, the CEO, came to file his tax return for another year and yet again found himself confused by endless, painful tax forms. So far, they’ve got invested over €200K by 3 different investors including Seedcamp – they were the first Portuguese company to receive funding from Seedcamp in the UK.

Getsocial

João Romão, CEO of Getsocial, was once one of the founders of WeShareIt, accelerated by Beta-start. João currently shares the story of the WeShareIt failure in Learning with Failures talks and workshops. Beta-start proudly helped on the transition from the original gifting idea to Getsocial, a web platform that helps websites understanding social sharing activities, by tracking every share made on your website and being to identify, for instance, which users shared, shares by product or visitors & conversions generated by shares.

Getsocial was then accelerated by Lisbon Challenge and got invested aprox. €375K by Portugal Ventures.

There are 20 days left for you to decide if you’re taking the risk of being featured in our “successful cases’” blog posts in a couple of months. Check more alumni here and apply to Beta-start until September 13^th.

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8 Publications you should be following on Startups and Entrepreneurship

by maria | Aug 17, 2015 | Uncategorized

So you want to get your idea off the ground and would like to join one of those pre-accelerators you keep hearing about but you’re just not sure what to expect from an “accelerator” and think there are just too many entrepreneurship related jargon you’re not familiar with?

Spend some of your summer time reading some relevant publications on startups and entrepreneurship and you will soon feel more comfortable about the idea of joining some others like you and make your ideas happen with programs like Beta-start.

For wantrepreneurs (even if you don’t know what that is), entrepreneurs or enthusiasts / startups fans, here are some quality publications you should be following (randomly listed).

First Round Review

These VC’s intend to do more than give their opinions on the entrepreneurship scene. Their goal is not only to report on what’s happening in the startup world but how it is happening – how things are being done.

Inc.com

Inc.com is that famous publication that, each year, ranks the fastest-growing private companies in America. Everyone want to become part of THE Inc. list at some point. On Inc.com you can also find insights, resources and inspirational articles which help you running and growing your businesses.

Pando.com

Sarah Lacy, a prior TechCrunch writer, once saw Silicon Valley as something very similar to the oldest living organism on Earth – an interconnected root system of a colony of trees in Utah named Pando Trees. She quit TechCrunch to found and write at PandoDaily on the Silicon Valley ecosystem and on startups. She’s recognized by her very special pinch of humor and brilliant writing when delivering technology news and relevant comments.

Both sides of a table

This blog’s author was once (actually twice) an entrepreneur and is now a VC (venture capitalist). He writes in the first person at an unpretentious opinion blog. If this classic doesn’t convince you, maybe this one will.

TechCrunch

Claiming to be “the number one guide for all tech things” here you can find what is hot in the tech innovation scene (they would add: disruptive). Getting noticed by TechCrunch is every tech startup’s dream.

WIRED

Reporting mainly on emerging technologies without forgetting their context – culture, politics and economy.

Entrepreneur

Obviously in its main topic, this magazine offers tips and how-to’s on many useful skills and tasks for entrepreneurs – including intrapreneurs and personal branding. This publication is one of those you open every morning while you’re having your coffee to keep updated on everything that matters within the entrepreneurship world.

Fast Company

Focusing on technology, business and design here you can find information about startups and other innovative companies.

Are you already following some of these publications? Congratulations, you’re up to date! The important thing is for you to find your own relevant sources according to what you want to develop and keep track of what’s more important for your potential business in the midst of nowadays wild river of information.

The post 8 Publications you should be following on Startups and Entrepreneurship appeared first on Beta-Start.

How do you know if your startup idea is good enough?

by maria | Aug 6, 2015 | Uncategorized

You’re reading this because you probably had one of those Eureka moments. You woke up one day and realised something was wrong with the world, it just didn’t feel right. You kept on thinking about this problem, that was really bothering you, and whether if you could fix it. And that’s when it hit you! That’s when the solution came right in front of your eyes and because, nowadays, all people seem to talk about is startups, you thought: why not? All your friends got excited and your parents encouraged you (hmm, second guesses about this one, maybe not so encouraging). So, you wondered… Could you take this further? Could it be a real business? How can you tell if your idea is good enough?

Now, before you start day-dreaming about Silicon Valley and how you can be the next Brian Chesky waving the Airbnb flag, or the next Travis Kalanick talking about how Uber will take over the world (not that there’s anything wrong with it), you need to see if what you’re building makes sense. How can you validate your idea so that you can take this to the next stage?

Well, first things first.

Talk to as many people as possible.

Forget that general misconception that if you tell people your idea they will steal it from you. That’s just not true. You’re the one obsessed with it, remember? And you’re the one who knows how to do it, so go ahead and talk about it. Find your industry experts and those who can really understand your product. Schedule a few meetings to talk about your plans and get their feedback. They will give you different perspectives and make you think of many other possibilities. In the end, if they get excited, you’re probably on the right track.

Do your research – know your target

Remember that you’re doing this for many other people. You need to make sure you’re building something people want so, it’s crucial that you reach to your potential target and understand their needs. If they share your pain and if what you’re building will make their lives easier then, you’ve got a green light. You can also take a look at Twitter and see if you can find tweets of people complaining about the problem you want to solve.

Check your competition

You should definitely check out if there’s someone addressing the same problem as you are. See what other companies are up to and if they’re building a similar solution. Make a list of these competitors and then, understand what makes your product different. Is it the price? Is it how fast you can get it done? If you can find others who are trying to solve the same problem then it’s also a good sign that there’s demand for your business.

Get started – build a landing page

Just get started. Don’t wait too long to build something just because you want it to be perfect. Start with a simple landing page to briefly explain what you want to do and why. In this landing page you can add a ‘subscribe box’ so that people can add their emails if they’re interested in your product. This way, you can prove there’s demand by the number of emails you get through this landing page. And once you launch the first version of your product, you’ll have a big list of contacts you can email.

Trust your instincts

If it feels right, it feels right. Most successful entrepreneurs were told to stop at some point in their lives, but they didn’t. You might get a lot of nos, specially from investors, but you keep on going because you’re really passionate about what you do and you believe in it. You just need to make sure it’s not complete non-sense – but even if it is, you’ll test it and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll just move on to building something else.

P.S.: Oh and if you need help to validate your idea and learn how to start a startup you can always apply to Beta-start until September 13th. It’s time to get your ideas off the paper. All it takes is a little push.

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