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ITB #7: How to write a quick startup problem statement
Lengthy problem statements kill startup pitches. In this week's weekly email, JDM shares a quick trick you can use to briefly explain the problem.
Hey, friend đ â JDM here.
Iâm back with another edition of my newsletter.
One short tip, trick, or mindset shift to launch sooner & scale faster.
4 minutes to read. Enjoy!
This weekâs trick: how to quickly explain the problem in your startup pitch
A common struggle for startup elevator pitches is taking too long to explain the problem you're solving, so I'm going to show you a little trick that can help you out here.
Iâm sure youâve seen this before: in a five-minute pitch, the founder spends two full minutes just talking about the problemâŠand we canât help but tune out.
We just donât care enough yet. We need to know what the problem is, and for whom youâre solving it, and that there are lots of customers out there. But we donât need to know all the ins and outs. Theyâre just distracting.
The challenge? Your expertise makes summarizing difficult.
This problem is particularly difficult for technical founders, and I donât mean the engineers and coders. I mean the subject matter experts who start their company because they have experienced a problem in their own industry that they want to solve.
Because of their great expertise in their field, they feel it is their mission to educate the listener on the many nuances of the problem. And they donât know how to get back to their âbeginnerâs mindâ.
But we donât need a lot of detail. We need just enough to sink our teeth into it and to frame the story youâre telling us.
In other words, we need only enough to contextualize the solution youâre offering.
The key is to hand-wave away as much as you can
You want to take as much as possible as a given and only explain what has to be explained.
So try this: in thinking about the problem, just finish this sentence: âas you can imagineâŠâ
What youâre doing is priming your brain to connect what can be assumed to what youâre saying out loud. Hereâs an example for Uber Eats, GrubHub, DoorDash, etc:
âAs you can imagine, itâs logistically challenging for restaurants to run their own delivery operation, especially since they already operate on tight margins.â
Just like that, weâve gotten to the core of the issue.
One sentence probably doesnât tell us enough about your problem, but it does tell us enough to frame everything else you might need to say. Youâve earned the right to talk about the current hacky solutions and the unsatisfied customers they produce.
Because we get it.
Based on the time constraints of our pitch, we can choose to expand on that as necessary in support of that point. We can use statistics, facts, research, and (best of all) stories to help us understand the severity of the problem â add nuance, talk about current solutions or competitors, & raise the stakes.
But weâve already stuck in the hook & opened a story loop that we can close with our solution.
âAs you can imagineâ is just a tool to get you started in finding brevity. You donât actually have to say âas you can imagineâ in your pitch, and you wonât nail the wording the first time you try. Pitching takes practice and repetition.
But youâre off a pretty solid start.
Hey, do me a favour â give âas you can imagineâ a try & reply with your problem statement. Iâd love to hear what youâre working on.
That's all for this week: one short tip on startup pitching.
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See you again next week!
-jdm
Published 6 months ago