How to kickstart and scale a consumer business—Step 3: Craft your pitch
Recession sale: Get 25% off an annual subscription for the next 48 hours by using the button below. Subscribing will give you access to this full issue—and every issue. Below is a peek at today’s subscriber-only post—part three of my six-part series on kickstarting and scaling a consumer marketplace. How to kickstart and scale a consumer business—Step 3: Craft your pitchLessons from Pinterest, Netflix, Tinder, Dropbox, DoorDash, Robinhood, Amazon, WhatsApp, and dozens of today’s most successful consumer businesses👋 Hey, I’m Lenny and welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of my weekly newsletter. Each week I tackle reader questions about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that’s stressing you out about work. Send me your questions and in return I’ll humbly offer actionable real-talk advice. Welcome to part three of our six-part series “Kickstarting and scaling your consumer business.” If you’re just joining us, here are links to previous posts, and a sense of what’s ahead:
The main question we’ll be answering in today’s post: How do you get your super-specific who’s attention? Again, a disclaimer: following these steps will not guarantee success. But it will increase your odds. People are busy. They’re bombarded with ads and life responsibilities, and have absolutely no reason to pay attention to your product. As venture capitalist Marc Andreessen put it, “Their time is already allocated.” To have any hope of grabbing someone’s attention, your pitch can’t be just good. It needs to be remarkable. Something worth remarking about. Watch this 30-second clip:
When Tony Xe launched DoorDash in 2013, he spent weeks going door to door trying to convince restaurants to sign up. It was a slog. He pitched them on the value of food delivery and mobile technology and on the promise of new customers. Growth was slow and restaurant owners were unimpressed. One day, he finally found a value prop that worked:
The product stayed the same, but the new pitch changed DoorDash’s trajectory. Similarly, when Scott Belsky first tried to convince designers to put their portfolio on Behance, he had a really hard time.
Eventually he adjusted what he was pitching designers, and his luck immediately turned around:
Netflix iterated on its product offering for 18 months and eventually found a hook that worked, as Marc Randolph (former CEO and co-founder) shared:
The question you need to be asking yourself: What is your remarkable hook? Here are some examples of great hooks that helped launch massive consumer businesses: Nail your hook and you’ll notice an immediate shift in interest, growth, and engagement. Miss the mark and you’ll continue to struggle. How to craft your hookThere are many approaches to coming up with your hook. I’ll share four. My advice is to try them all. Feel out which path leads you to something that excites you, grabs your potential users’ attention, and tells your story in as few words as possible. As you start to see what’s working and what isn’t, keep tweaking. Almost no one got this right the first time. Before you start, make sure you’ve come up with your super-specific who. Also don’t overthink the difference between a hook, a pitch, a value prop, a tagline, and positioning. They’re all important, but in the end, you need to figure out a way to describe what you’ve got, in a compelling way, and get someone to care. Here’s four ways to do this:
You can use this simple B2C GTM template that I introduced in the previous post to capture your ideas... Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter to read the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Lenny's Newsletter to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
|
Older messages
How to kickstart and scale a consumer business—Step 2: Identify your super-specific who
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Lessons from Substack, Netflix, Yelp, Discord, TikTok, Instagram, Cameo, DoorDash, and dozens of others
Sign in to Lenny's Newsletter
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
. Here's a link to sign in to Lenny's Newsletter. This link can only be used once and expires after 24 hours. Sign in now © 2022 2443 Fillmore St., #380-8231, San Francisco, CA 94115 345 .
Kickstarting and scaling a consumer business
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Step 1: How to come up with an idea
How to build trust in a marketplace
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Lessons from Lyft, Rover, Thumbtack, Snackpass, Peerspace, Shef, and more
Community Wisdom: Podcast update + prioritizing at an early-stage startup, playbooks for product discovery, demons…
Friday, June 10, 2022
Community Wisdom 88
You Might Also Like
[CEI] Chrome Extension Ideas #137
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
ideas for Twitter, SVG, YouTube, and Jio Cinemas ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
62 new Shopify apps for you 🌟
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
New Shopify apps hand-picked for you 🙌 Week 15 Apr 8, 2024 - Apr 15, 2024 New Shopify apps hand-picked for you 🙌 What's New at Shopify? 🌱 Redirect to URL after Form submission in Shopify Forms
Introducing the new Board view
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Drag and drop your way from "To Do" to "Done" with Buffer's new Board view. Keep track of your ideas with Buffer's new Board view 🎉 If you're a fan of Trello or
The Market Size Mistake
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Tomasz Tunguz Venture Capitalist If you were forwarded this newsletter, and you'd like to receive it in the future, subscribe here. The Market Size Mistake Over the weekend, Tobi, the founder
Hyprvisor, StaticHost, Cuppa, SpeakNotes, Breezemail, and more
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
AI Voice Note Summarizer BetaList BetaList Daily Breezemail Exclusive Perk keep your important emails in your inbox and categorizes the rest with AI UserCall AI moderated voice user interviews
the 2 hour rule
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Read this in 1 min, 17 sec Picture this: It's 7AM in the morning. Everyone's asleep. No cars driving on the streets. Just... quiet. That was me last Saturday morning. Over the weekend, I
Loved the summit? Keep the momentum going 👉
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
This was just the beginning. Special invite inside… , Thank you! It's been incredible having all of you join us for the Start Your E-commerce Business Summit. Whether it was sourcing your products
Aaron Francis — You're FIRED! — The Bootstrapped Founder 312
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Aaron Francis (@aarondfrancis) lost his job and gained a new outlook on life — or rather, he stepped into entrepreneurship for good.
Disney+ winning messaging
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
The evolution of the Disney+ positioning ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
How to share your point of view (even if you’re afraid of being wrong)
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Sharing your point of view is one of the best ways to add value. So why do so many high performers hold back? Here's how to overcome this mental block so you can speak up and stand out. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏