Articulation matters!

Published: 23-Jan-2021

Don't start working on a pitch a week before a meeting. It takes time & iterations.

Spend time to think of & get feedback on the articulation of the company (2-3 lines that describe what you do). What do I mean by this? Through what lens you want someone to look at the business. In what bucket should they slot you. Lot of this is decided by the end-vision, competition and sector.

Dunzo

My fav example is how Dunzo changed its articulation from a personal concierge service to enabling local commerce. With the ‘personal concierge’ articulation, their only revenue source is the customer. With the ‘local commerce’ articulation, merchant gets added in. Their product changes from chat-like UI to a Swiggy-like UI. The opportunity size is much larger.

Business on the ground is the same. But this articulation changes the way you evaluate the company.

Simplanations

Personal example. If I was pitching Simplanations, I will ensure my messaging makes it clear I see it as an education company, and not a journalism company. If I establish this lens, it makes it easier for me to explain why I don't need to publish content daily (like Ken, Economic Times, etc)….because I am building content that has shelf-life of a few years. My eyeballs come over time. This lens will decide who my actual competition is and what my monetization options are. So it's important to convey this articulation to someone whose money I want.

Parting thoughts

Having this articulation in your head (and in your pitch) is important since it will decide a lot of things about your business. It can even change the direction of the product like in the Dunzo example. Similarly for Simplanations, the education vs journalism distinction will decide its scope of content.

Articulation is very important!