About the presentation of ideas
From a recent on Ideablog : “A few words need to be said about the presentation. This is one of the most important components of the search for investors. It must be prepared at the highest level. This applies to all its details: from the visual accompaniment and the text told by the speaker, to the manner of behavior on the stage and the clothes of the presenter. She must be rehearsed many times, adjusted to seconds. It should not be "water", unnecessary words and extraneous information. It depends on the presentation how much the potential investor will be interested in, whether he wants to continue the communication, or immediately forgets about the project. The impression of a number of really interesting projects was completely spoiled by a weak presentation . ”
There is hardly anything to argue with, but there is something to supplement and clarify.
As noted by Bjorn Straustrup, the best quality projects are often worse represented by their creators. It is interesting to understand why. One reason is immediately apparent: a bright scientist (specialist in general) is rarely the same bright teacher (PR man). More often it is two different talents. Therefore, in the startup team it makes sense to separate these functions. But there is another reason.
One may ask, what is the idea of an Internet startup? Such a question would hardly have arisen in the case of narrowly-specific projects (which, probably, the majority). For example, somewhere there was a mention of a service that translates texts into any audio format upon request. Probably, in connection with traffic jams and crowds in the subway, such a thing is relevant (and not only for these reasons). Explain the essence of this idea during the movement of the elevator is quite possible. But what do you say, if you need to explain the essence and relevance of, for example, blog services during this time? Try to do this convincingly for a hypothetical investor even now, when blogging is one of the most widespread activities, and entire research is devoted to analyzing the reasons for the popularity of blogs (for example, you can see the links on the Wikipedia page on blogs). Perhaps “ self-presentation and communication services ” is a suitable name. But after all, it’s not just communication — personal social networks are being built in the Internet space, a network in which many limitations and conventions of the traditional social environment do not apply to masks. You can say this is the idea of an alternative environment for the social self-realization of the individual.
')
Now it seems to me that the most conceptual things initially did not have such a clear representation for investors, as described in the quotation above, but they grope almost randomly - some service for some reason shot, later analysts analyzed why, clones with variations were made, mastered ideologically close directions. For example, what should be considered the primary idea of Wikipedia - the “Internet encyclopedia” or “user-generated content”? These are two different ideas and in terms of abstractness (one is the specification of the other), and, if necessary, justify each one individually. Moreover, in reality these ideas are not two, but a whole multitude. For example, the traditional encyclopedia is the convenience of searching + mini text format + quality and maximum commonality of consideration in this mini format + connectivity (“hyperlink”) of most texts. Fortunately, all this does not need to be explained to anyone, since the encyclopedia is a thing known for a long time. Regarding user-generated, there is also something to analyze. For example, it turned out that an interesting, high-quality and popular content writes an insignificant percentage of users, perhaps comparable to the total number of professional journalists of online publications. It turns out that this is rather the idea of “social elevators”, an alternative to the traditional space of social self-realization of the authors (although, for example, in Wikipedia, the idea of authorship is completely underestimated). Which in turn is directly related to editorial issues or the idea of user ratings in one form or another. These things become clear afterwards when projects accumulate much experience; in advance it is possible to ingenuously brilliantly this, but it is hardly possible at the same time to clothe in clear and distinct verbal forms.
The result is as if you were looking intently at something, and this thing, instead of becoming clearer and more detailed, on the contrary - it began to radically change and transform into something else. As a result, you go out to some deep-seated archetypes, gnoseology, sociology, psychology, esoteric ... (On this occasion, I remembered my old article Computer Science and Archetypes ).
In the previous text, Reflections of a Beginner, I suggested the desirability of some resource devoted both to the general systematization of Internet startups (resources in general) and to a specific listing of all available in each of the areas. Now it seems that, apart from this information, the authors of these resources were very curious about the initial plan, how they presented it to investors, and what happened in the end.
Yes, but what conclusions from all this? Startups don't have a reason to relax - striving for clarity of thought is beneficial anyway) Well, maybe listen to the advice of investors and pick out one idea from a list of interconnected ones, making it central even if its dominance is not obvious. Here I am in doubt, which strategy is better ... And to be more attentive to investors for projects that are not quite clearly presented - perhaps the ambiguity of some of them is due to their nontriviality :) However, I will probably even write a separate text Tips for investors :)
To be continued.
There is hardly anything to argue with, but there is something to supplement and clarify.
As noted by Bjorn Straustrup, the best quality projects are often worse represented by their creators. It is interesting to understand why. One reason is immediately apparent: a bright scientist (specialist in general) is rarely the same bright teacher (PR man). More often it is two different talents. Therefore, in the startup team it makes sense to separate these functions. But there is another reason.
One may ask, what is the idea of an Internet startup? Such a question would hardly have arisen in the case of narrowly-specific projects (which, probably, the majority). For example, somewhere there was a mention of a service that translates texts into any audio format upon request. Probably, in connection with traffic jams and crowds in the subway, such a thing is relevant (and not only for these reasons). Explain the essence of this idea during the movement of the elevator is quite possible. But what do you say, if you need to explain the essence and relevance of, for example, blog services during this time? Try to do this convincingly for a hypothetical investor even now, when blogging is one of the most widespread activities, and entire research is devoted to analyzing the reasons for the popularity of blogs (for example, you can see the links on the Wikipedia page on blogs). Perhaps “ self-presentation and communication services ” is a suitable name. But after all, it’s not just communication — personal social networks are being built in the Internet space, a network in which many limitations and conventions of the traditional social environment do not apply to masks. You can say this is the idea of an alternative environment for the social self-realization of the individual.
')
Now it seems to me that the most conceptual things initially did not have such a clear representation for investors, as described in the quotation above, but they grope almost randomly - some service for some reason shot, later analysts analyzed why, clones with variations were made, mastered ideologically close directions. For example, what should be considered the primary idea of Wikipedia - the “Internet encyclopedia” or “user-generated content”? These are two different ideas and in terms of abstractness (one is the specification of the other), and, if necessary, justify each one individually. Moreover, in reality these ideas are not two, but a whole multitude. For example, the traditional encyclopedia is the convenience of searching + mini text format + quality and maximum commonality of consideration in this mini format + connectivity (“hyperlink”) of most texts. Fortunately, all this does not need to be explained to anyone, since the encyclopedia is a thing known for a long time. Regarding user-generated, there is also something to analyze. For example, it turned out that an interesting, high-quality and popular content writes an insignificant percentage of users, perhaps comparable to the total number of professional journalists of online publications. It turns out that this is rather the idea of “social elevators”, an alternative to the traditional space of social self-realization of the authors (although, for example, in Wikipedia, the idea of authorship is completely underestimated). Which in turn is directly related to editorial issues or the idea of user ratings in one form or another. These things become clear afterwards when projects accumulate much experience; in advance it is possible to ingenuously brilliantly this, but it is hardly possible at the same time to clothe in clear and distinct verbal forms.
The result is as if you were looking intently at something, and this thing, instead of becoming clearer and more detailed, on the contrary - it began to radically change and transform into something else. As a result, you go out to some deep-seated archetypes, gnoseology, sociology, psychology, esoteric ... (On this occasion, I remembered my old article Computer Science and Archetypes ).
In the previous text, Reflections of a Beginner, I suggested the desirability of some resource devoted both to the general systematization of Internet startups (resources in general) and to a specific listing of all available in each of the areas. Now it seems that, apart from this information, the authors of these resources were very curious about the initial plan, how they presented it to investors, and what happened in the end.
Yes, but what conclusions from all this? Startups don't have a reason to relax - striving for clarity of thought is beneficial anyway) Well, maybe listen to the advice of investors and pick out one idea from a list of interconnected ones, making it central even if its dominance is not obvious. Here I am in doubt, which strategy is better ... And to be more attentive to investors for projects that are not quite clearly presented - perhaps the ambiguity of some of them is due to their nontriviality :) However, I will probably even write a separate text Tips for investors :)
To be continued.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/28694/
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