🚦 3-2-1 Traction — what founders get wrong about pitching
Also: find, validate, and sell to the right customer; how to “do” transparency; a business model crash course; the value of colocation; and more.
Hey friend 👋
Can you believe it’s already December? I can’t.
In this final few weeks of 2023, we aim to close it out strong, and plan for an amazing 2024.
I hope these 3 ideas from me, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question will help you focus on just that.
This is 3-2-1 Traction. Let’s go. 👇
3 ideas from me
one
The job of an entrepreneur is to find, validate, and sell to the right customer.
The job of a manager is to make that eventually efficient.
two
The goal of an investment pitch isn’t to get investment. It’s to get a second meeting.
Life isn’t like Shark Tank.
three
A business model is just 4 things:
Who is the customer?
What is the value we’re creating?
How is that created & delivered?
Why does this make money?
Any other business model tool or canvas is just a different level of abstraction around these four components. Save those complicated tools for later. First:
Can you answer these four questions compellingly?
2 ideas from others
Sarah Tavel, GP at VC group Benchmark, on the value of co-location:
I'll confess now, if you are an early stage company (particularly a pre product/market fit company), if a founder tells me that they are all together in one office, subconsciously, all things held equal, my view on the probability of that company reaching escape velocity shifts higher than if the company were distributed.
Collaboration, cadence, trust, communication, the creativity that emerges from hallway conversations, employee community and engagement — these are all highest when you are together in person. And I'm talking way higher.
For an early stage company where these elements are critical, being distributed at the early stages can be like trying to sprint while pulling a parachute strapped to your back. You have to be way stronger as a team to neutralize the cost of being distributed when you are subscale.
James Everingham, former head of engineering at Instagram, on transparency:
When you think of transparency, you usually default to the communication aspect: telling everyone what’s happening or admitting when you’ve made a mistake. But when folks say that things aren’t transparent, what they’re probably getting at is that decision-making isn’t transparent. It’s the feeling that decisions sometimes roll on down from the lofty perch of the leadership team, seemingly out of nowhere. Instead, pull back the curtain on how decisions are made, putting some process and principles behind it so it’s not this mysterious black box that’s ripe for speculation.
1 question for you
If you polled everyone on your team, how many of them would describe you as transparent? How can you pull back the curtain?
Have a great week, my friend!
— jdm
Thanks JDM and Contributors, very insightful.