Techstars Day2 ~ End - Building Networks, Defining Your Business
I soon head back to Korea, and I thought that I might never write a post about the Techstars experience after I go to Korea. In this post, I would like to cram all the things I learned from Techstars since Day 2 to its final day.
Build network with mentors by asking advice from them
On Day 2, John Hill, a post-LinkedIn person, came to the seminar to give us a lecture of how to build networks and find people you need through LinkedIn. Before that, we had been lectured on discovering the 3Ws, Who (Who are you selling to?), What (What are the customers buying - NOT what you are selling!), Why (Why are the customers buying). I do not remember the exact details that were dicsussed in the lecture, but I do remember that we were going through the 3Ws because we had to be prepared to pitch ourselves effectively. In our short pitch (7 ~ 15 seconds), all the 3Ws had to be included to make our pitch clear and informantive.
The importance of preparing a clear pitch 3Ws is not limited to us for gaining attention from investors. It has importance because that clear pitch consisted of maybe 3 to 4 sentences is the phrase other people that know us can use to introduce to other people. Imagine we send an email about our business to another person. The person replies that she is not particularly interested but says that she will definitely introduce us to someone else that might be interested. Now she is on the her table writing an email about us to another person who she thinks might be interested in our business. What would happen if we did not provide her a clear informative pitch that she could simply copy and paste on her email? She would have a hard time trying to introduce our business in her own words making the whole process of trying to introducing us to another person cumbersome. She will be easily discouraged to introduce us to other people.
The seminar from a post-LinkedIn person's lecture on building network came after the lecture on the importance of creating an informative pitch and how to create a revenue formula. He told us how we could effectively use LinkedIn to easily reach out to someone we could ask guidance from. The one thing that he put great emphasis on while he taught us how we could do it was, "If you are asking for money in the first meeting of an investor, you are losing". When you are trying to approach a mentor, be it a investor or an expert, ASK FOR AN ADVICE. When you approach someone asking for an advice, everything shifts since once they have given you a piece of advice you have literally allowed them to get invested in you. Now they take part in your journey.
Hill also remined us that mentors are not paid. They genuinly have no reason to interact with you. However they will mentor you out of altruisum or out of interest in recent business trends. The motivation based on altruism is simply their want to give back what they have earned from their journey. The motivation based on interest in recent business trends is self-explanatory.
More to the HOW to use LinkedIn. Hill said that there are special tabs for organizations. Schools have 'alumni' tabs, and companies have 'life' tab or 'people' tab. In fact, these additional tabs especially for companies is actually some feature that companies have to pay for if they would like to have that in their profiles. These 'life' tab or 'people' tab is the best tab you can refer to if you want to know the language or culture of the company because they will definitely have that tab for a reason.
Last but not least, Hill talked about the importance of watering your network everyday. He says that he personally strictly tightens his network to get a clear network of his first level communications. His directly connected people would be consisted of people he could directly contact with and grab a meeting with the other person that his directly connected person would be in direct connection. Also he recommended posting on LinkedIn since mentors are interested in your journey and they want to see it. Posting under 3 categories was what he also emphasized. His last words of the seminar was "Build a network before you need it".
Mario analogy for defining your business
Day 2 ended with John Hill's talk about building networks, and I do not exactly remember what other lectures there wre after Day 2. Later on it was mostly a continuation of meeting mentors and so on. It was till Day 3 that we were lectured, and from then on, each team individually had to meet with mentors and so on. There is not much that I remember from the lectures from then on, but there is one analogy that I remember to this day, and that is what I would like to share in this post.
The above image is brought from UserOnBoard. This is analogy that Kerty used while talking about how we should pitch ourselves. To anyone familiar to Mario game, when the player eats a mushroom, the player evolves (gets bigger). Kurty taught us the core information that we needed to include when we were to pitch our business in 30 seconds. The pitch had to contain who the customers are, what problem do we sove, what the product is, why should you (investors) care, and optionally a breif founder market fit (ex. "I previously worked in NASA as an engineer" would be powerful if your business ahd to do with space engineering). The template provided was, "There are ~ problems these days. Our solution product is ~. We provide solution to ~, SO THAT OUR CUSTOMERS CAN ~". The "SO THAT" part is the most important part. Like explained in the mario image, what the company is selling is not actually the product itself, but the customers who have evolved after using our product.
This mario anoalgy is the reason why I wanted to write this post. It delivers a message that is crucial to a startup. A product is nothing without customers. In fact, in Techstars Day 2, we were constantly reminded the importance of gathering customer testimonials and making the practice of meeting customers one by one daily a habit. The importance of having a customer is also emphasized in a book I am reading now, Rework. Seeing customers enjoy your product acts as an important motivation to all team members. Remember, it is not fancy technology or product that you should focus on and put it upfront when you are selling to others. Your real product are the customers that have evolved thanks to your product.