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Yes, but what does your startup do?
- _Microft 9y agoStrange, these things seemed absolutely self-evident. If you want people to do something, make it as simple as possible to do so as the slightest obstacle can turn them away. That includes informing them what the whole thing is about (googling is an extra step that you can remove from the process by including the necessary information from the start). (same applies to oneself as well, e.g.: if you want to go cycling regularly, make sure that you do not have to carry the bike from the cellar upstairs to do so)
- bitwize 9y agoWe leverage synergies in B2C relationships to provide growth opportunities! Duh!
- Sodman 9y agoBut can you help us with the transformation to digital?
- hguhghuff 9y agoWhat is the transformation to digital meme?
- thetrumanshow 9y agoIt’s a great new meme opportunity, and you’re on the ground floor. Get in while you can.
- jaclaz 9y agoNaaah, we are already onto seamless and AI-driven transformation to digital ... ;-)
- brootstrap 9y agoOur AI-driven IoT real-time predictive ML platform provides the ultimate corporate syngergy-gasm.
- trgv 9y agoMeanwhile, in marketing school, there's a teacher writing on a whiteboard: "Never ever tell anyone what your company does."
- ainar-g 9y agoIs this a joke, or is it based on real-life experience? I honestly can't tell. Because this might be one of the worst advices I've ever heard.
- segmondy 9y agoWe are stealth yo, super top secret kinda stuff. The world will have to wait and we will wow em when we are done and ready.
- _Microft 9y agoWe are SO in stealth-mode that we ourselves have no idea what we are doing!
- snaily 9y agoDouble stealth mode: no one knows what we're building, and neither do we https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183
- phaemon 9y agoheh, you didn't need to link to a parody. The "We've got an awesome team and have secured VC funding. Now, anyone got any product ideas?" from last week would have done :)
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- superasn 9y agoEven when you think the other person is a techie, I've seen it generally helps to assume that he is not, to avoid this Curse of knowledge. Also at least in my domain, I've found analogies are a great way to explain super complicated things very easily. Old world physical analogies work great (like a bank, wallmart, etc) but analogies using other startups, i.e. we're the Uber of X, or we're the blablacar for Y not so much. Because sometimes the other person may not know what blablacar is (or for that matter Uber).
- IIAOPSW 9y agowait is blablacar a thing or did you just make it up? I'm out of the loop and legit can't tell.
- ainar-g 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlaBlaCar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlaBlaCar
- pathsjs 9y agoIt is a thing, and here where I live (Italy) is pretty popular - I would say more than Uber, for what it's worth. It is a service to arrange long trips from one city to another with other people, so that the driver can share the ride and get compensated from passengers (and also have company) in return
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- j_s 9y agoRecent example 2 days ago: I'm Joining Report URI | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15599906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15599906 (2017Nov:160points,64comments) >skrebbel: I don't get it. What does Report URI do? (top comment)
- nailer 9y agoI really like Report URI (hi Scott!) but so much of their messaging is about CSP and report-uri (the technology they use) rather than what they do (stop cross site scripting).
- pyronite 9y agoTroy Hunt's post details what Report URI does in the first paragraph but it didn't explain to Skrebbel how they accomplished those things.
- skrebbel 9y agoTrue! It even starts with the classic "what if I told you.." and then goes on describing something that seems fantastically magical. I learned something that day though. It's very cool that browsers can report CSP violations. HN is good for stuff like this.
- vmateixeira 9y agoIt seems to me that their marketing is really working.. they just got to HN front page and I'm sure almost everyone reading couldn't resist googling them ;)
- welly 9y agoA bunch of people talking about "what do they actually do?" that doesn't convert to sales would suggest their marketing isn't actually working.
- indescions_2017 9y ago"Do" may be irrelevant if you are advising someone who is an expert in a particular vertical, in which you yourself have little experience or domain knowledge. But if they state their model is Enterprise SaaS or Subscription-based Media Content. Then its easier to suggest a quick hack for training sales teams or where to find freelance editors online, etc.
- natch 9y agoSame thing goes for open source projects. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an announcement along the lines of “Flurboska 2.0 is released!” and then when you follow the URL there’s no info about what it does, and if there’s an About link it often just has a list of release notes for various versions. Each entry says vague things like “stability improved” which doesn’t reveal much.
- stephengillie 9y agoMy comment from a recent thread about Sway: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15508993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15508993 /s/Flurboska/GenericPhrase "New version of Pandora Nexus released." Great - is this any relation to the 2 Pandoras or the several Nexuses? Does this play music on my phone or move assets into a VM? Neither, it syncs bookmarks between browsers.
- evincarofautumn 9y agoAlso, too much information is just as bad as not enough. I’ve seen many a project whose home page or README dives straight into technical jargon about it, telling me all about how it’s world-changing and completely unlike anything else, without explaining in one clear sentence what the thing is and why I might want to use it. You’ve got to hold my hand if you want to take me through a paradigm shift, or I’m going to assume your software is a Rube Goldberg contraption that doesn’t really do anything.
- thisisit 9y agoI have been reading Dale Carnegie's seminal book. One of the advice therein - Arouse an Eager Want. So, while the 2nd example is an improvement, many people might read the first para - So you are attending the conference and are some kind of bank with APIs...umm..so what? Why should I be interested in it? The better structure will be to start thinking in terms of why/what an intended recipient might want to use the API, followed by the process and conference.
- peterkelly 9y agoDale Carnegie's seminal book is "How to Win Friends and Influence People", for those who were wondering.
- j_s 9y ago_The Hidden Persuaders_ (Vance Packard, 1959) https://amzn.com/dp/B006NV977W https://amzn.com/dp/B006NV977W was recommended elsewhere today. This nearly-as-ancient classic is at least an order of magnitude less mentioned but provides more depth applicable online. >Xunxi: some of the examples are dated [...] how to "stoke the hivemind" https://hn.algolia.com/?query=the%20hidden%20persuaders&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=the%20hidden%20persuaders&sort...
- slap_shot 9y agoA lot of companies can't explain what they do either due to a lack of focus or poor writing, but this particular company's offense can be explained in one line from the post: > It's important to remember that no one cares about your startup! That original email was written with a tone of someone who expected the recipients to know who the company is, what they do, and expected the reader to care or be excited. No one cares about your start up. Your customers might not even care - they just want a problem to go away.
- lhnz 9y agoMaybe they do this because it creates better engagement? If they told you their signup process was quick, they would lessen their ability to convince you that you need to sign-up right now. If they told you what they did, then you wouldn't have to click through to their home page or twitter account to find out what it is. And finally if you weren't annoyed, you wouldn't have given them all of this free marketing on Hacker News.
- inthewoods 9y agoThe example given here is pretty extreme. The lack of any explanation of who the startup is and what they do is so basic that I hesitate to even call it a marketing issue.
- danvoell 9y agoPlease take this advice to heart all you startups. I can't tell you how many times I have signed up for a new startup waitlist and then 6 months later I get an email from some ambigious startup name - "Your wait is up, time to join Uprocket" with no additional information. Wait, who is this, I don't really care anymore. I know its obvious to you but its not always obvious to others. Just add it to your signature for crying out loud. "Uprocket - We help startups solve the problem of people not knowing what they do by adding an email signature which tells people what they do"
- pc86 9y ago> Uprocket - We help startups solve the problem of people not knowing what they do by adding an email signature which tells people what they do You could probably get a cool half million in seed money for this.
- dsr_ 9y agoTo: all-employees@company.com From: elpresidente@company.com Subject: email signatures required. Starting immediately, please use an email signature of the following format on all email messages, inside and outside. -- Name McNamerson - Official Title Official Group Name - City, State, Country https://www.company.com/ Don't put anything else in. If you have trouble getting this set up, IT has put together a page for all our supported mail clients at https://www.company.com/internal/signatures https://www.company.com/internal/signatures Thanks! -- Edgar L. Presidente - Director Human Resources - San Francisco, CA USA https://www.company.com/
- cryptoz 9y agoThis is a good use case for http://example.com http://example.com
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- pleasecalllater 9y agoUsually burns the investors' money :)
- whalesalad 9y agoReminds me of http://n.io http://n.io – their homepage is almost an homage to HBO's Silicon Valley. Notable catch phrases: human ingenuity, interoperable connectivity, universal intelligence, distributed intelligence, Chip-to-cloud, unconditional interoperability, ... "nio provides the technology to unleash your imagination"
- superb_herb 9y ago"Delivering interoperability" My god.
- stefantheard 9y agoThat is really absurd. What a great example. "We are currently accepting applications for our early access program" early access to what?
- hdhzy 9y agoEarly access to the Imagination Unleasher 3000 apparently...
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- hinkley 9y agoYou won’t believe what we have coming next. No really, it’s unbelievable. Even I don’t believe it.
- kabdib 9y agoAn iOT device that dispenses Unicorn Chow. "That's Unicorn food? Looks like Froot Loops to me."
- BraveNewCurency 9y agoWell, duh. It's a prototype. We had to build the MVP first. As soon as we fill our Unicorn Hunter position, we'll be all set...
- BatFastard 9y agoWas amazed when I read "Sign-up is simple and should only take about three minutes" If a simple signup only takes three minutes, I can't imagine how long a complex one takes!
- edent 9y ago(OP here) To be fair to them, they mandate 2FA set up. If you've not done it before, it can be a complex and time consuming process.
- tnolet 9y agoIn a similar vein, startups are somehow obsessed with reporting on their "startup-dom": - That they were in pitch event X - That they were featured in startup mag Y - That they're attending startup fair Z All inwards focussing, completely useless info to that/those which are most important: customers.
- twobyfour 9y agoDepends on whom you're communicating to. The signals those startups are putting out are very important ones indicating legitimacy to potential investors. Maybe some founders are confusing what's important to signal to investors with what's important to signal to customers?
- adekok 9y agoIf you think that's bad, I've seen presentations to angel investors where the CEO repeats things like "we do big data analysis to help our customers synergise and analyze..." Q: OK, that's nice, what do you do? What value do you offer the customer A: Big data analysis! Synergise! <sigh> Bad emails are one thing. Bad presentations to investors just reeks of incompetence.
- trisimix 9y agoGuess this is why my college is forcing me to take technical communication.
- majewsky 9y agoThis applies to websites of open source projects, too. I remember when I visited docker.com for the first time because someone told me it's the latest shit and I just wanted to know what it is about. I browsed their website for 10 minutes, and summarized the experience to a coworker like this: "As far as I can see, it's the best thing ever and I'd be stupid not to use it, but I still does not know what it actually does." Since then, whenever I make a website (or a README.md) for my open-source projects, I always make sure that it starts with 1. a short description of what the project is/does in one or two sentences, and 2. a longer explanation of the how and why in one or two paragraphs. Representative example: https://github.com/sapcc/limes/tree/master/README.md https://github.com/sapcc/limes/tree/master/README.md
- TallGuyShort 9y agoFavorite conference quote ever: "So other than unicorns barfing rainbows, what is Docker?"
- PascLeRasc 9y agoThank you. I'm a hardware guy and I've heard about a dozen of explanations of what Docker is and even tried to set it up on my NAS but I still have no idea. And to the person about to comment with your version, I don't really care to know.
- ThomPete 9y agoWriting copy for a tech startup is very difficult because most people who write good marketing copy aren't necessarily very technically capable. The way I always solved this was to get someone with technical insight write the first version and then have the copywriter re-write it into a human. It's remarkable how well it works.
- staticautomatic 9y agoWriting copy for a startup is not hard. It's just boring as fuck to most really good copywriters, who accordingly avoid startup jobs when possible.
- ThomPete 9y agoThat's not my experience. Most great copywriters I know like to take something convoluted and make it clearer and crisper.
- staticautomatic 9y agoMy point was more that a lot of strong creative types are bored to tears by startup subject matter (I acknowledge "startup" is a broad category)
- wmeredith 9y agoExhibit A: In your first sentence you use "isn't" when you should use "aren't". :D (You could also drop both uses of "very" in that sentence and it's a stronger statement.)
- beamatronic 9y agoOur unique technology allows you to not only increment the counter, but also to branch based on whether that counter is equal to zero.
- staticautomatic 9y agoIt also allows for interconnected fizzing and synergistic buzzing.
- supermatt 9y ago> Starling Bank be attending $conference 2017 Arrrr!?
- mongodude 9y agoVery classic one is x.ai or Amy or whatever they call it now. They overhyped their capability of building a smart assistant for reading and replying to emails and ended up being an average service that sort of works. Earlier, they kept telling me that I have jumped their queue and will soon get access. Now they ask me to upgrade the plan to keep using it. Complete BS!
- dpcx 9y agoAverage? I've used it at least a dozen times in the last month, and it's worked perfectly every time. It may not be the fastest, but it's certainly the best... YMMV, of course.
- mongodude 9y agoIt's good but considering auto-reply feature of Gmail and integration with other apps like Calendar and Hangouts, I wouldn't pay for any such solution. Of course, assuming the organization use Gsuite else, maybe x.ai fits the bill.
- apexalpha 9y agoOff topic: I'm very glad the open banking API's are coming to the EU. Every app can request access to your account and build services and software around it. Think it's called PSD2 for those interested.
- pascalxus 9y agoIt's a basic but good point. Always mention what your start up does AND include a sign up page. For instance, I'll often start off with something like(notice that I start off with the value proposition too): "Never break your code: We build Regression tests, so you don't have to" Check us out here: https://swif.club/?s=hn https://swif.club/?s=hn And I include that in my signature as well.
- Balgair 9y agoAhh yes, but then you take away the mystery. Can't grift investors or customers if you let them look behind the curtain, can you?
- geonnave 9y agoLanding pages make this very same mistake all the time. It is one of the biggest goals for such a page, to show the what & why of the product, and still too many people do it in a way that lets no clue about what the thing is about. It is good to see other people noticing this and writing about it. Hopefully this will be included in good/bad practices lists in the future.
- hennsen 9y agoThe first comment on the page is interesting. I believe if you have that kind of problem, you haven’t set up proper teamwork between techs and marketers to create such texts together. The one makes sure it’s great dor selling, the other that it doesn’t annoy developers and give them the information they want.
- erikb 9y agoWell, that is taught here since 2007 or so. Most start-up guys are just young and simply don't know. I guess you need to experience that first.
- acabal 9y agoI'd also like to add that not everyone (cough cough) uses or wants to use Twitter. Please, please, please also include a plain email address or a contact form so that everyone can get in touch with you if necessary.
- 0xbear 9y agoTo be fair, oftentimes startups themselves can’t answer this simple question _to themselves_. “What is it that we do” is a loaded question, and once you answer it you’re at least temporarily committed to that cause. A lot of founders have severe commitment issues.
- travisl12 9y agoThis especially applies to Trello tickets that you're writing to your own colleagues/developers. Prior to going to DevBootcamp I worked as an engineering consultant, my product was informational reports that had to describe specifically what the problem was, how we determined that, and what we recommended to resolve it. Sometimes my reports would be returned to me in a blood bath of red ink on changes but eventually you understand what it means to get the point across objectively and concisely. My point is, get your copy proof read, limit the jargon, and get to the point in the first sentence.
- kirykl 9y agoCheckbook.io is like this. Took me 45 min just to understand their value offering. All they need to mention is “we use Check21 instead of ACH” but it’s no where to be found.
- Mz 9y agoI think a lot of tech people honestly don't know how to do this. GIS is a database with mapping software attached. I began explaining it to people as "kind of like SimCity for the real world." People who do GIS get lost in the details. They can't see the forest for the trees. Laypeople need a quick and dirty sketch of the forest in the simplest, most pertinent terms possible. This is just not easy to pull off when your day to day work is all about cataloguing individual leaves in this vast forest.