One of the hardest things to do when creating a new product is simplify the explanation to get across the intent of the product without getting stuck in the details. Nothing other than hard work and a lot of listening to customers will get you there.
Drew couldn't explain dropbox until he failed repeatedly
I remember we were hanging out with Drew Houston in the Marina in SF pretty early on after we graduated, (We are the same year at MIT, close fraternities, etc...). He was trying to explain DropBox to us over a beer to Josh, Willie, Tim (EmSense founders) and I. He had business cards he was handing out for initial beta accounts.
The challenge was that it wasn't resonating... at all... I remember taking the card, but not feeling that I needed "Yet another backup program" to store files. How he was explaining it didn't capture the value and use case, even though it explained what the product physically did.
It wasn't until a few months later, and based on a ton of really strong feedback, that he created the video below which actually explained that the value wasn't backup, but sharing and connecting devices. The rest is history.
What Drew did right was iterate. In addition to bombing when introducing the product to friends, family and random strangers, he created and shared around 8 different versions on hacker news (Y Combinator site) asking for really critical feedback from peers, users, etc and most of them were quite bad to start, but then it finally got to the one below which, while being rough, really explained the value.
Since people usually only see the final videos for a company's product, they feel that it has to be a professionally done, beautiful, well distilled explanation.
What they are missing is that you have to start by getting the message right. External companies can only improve the clarity of what you already have. They can't explain a message that you as a founder or leader can not do yourself.
From Drew: "The demo part of the video was done in one take and wasn't edited (or faked) in any way. That said, it took a ludicrous number of practice takes to get it right. It took another 6 months to launch publicly because we wanted to fix bugs that our beta users found."
Sticky Product Video Iterations Continue
For our Sticky product videos, I probably have 25 "final versions" of the explanation of the product. None of which are perfect and all of which are trying to explain it a little better and a little different.
The above video is targeted at marketing professionals who are looking for an easy-to-use platform which replaces their outsourced (expensive) market research agencies they are using today and gives them the latest tools for optimizing engagement of digital products.
We are still iterating...
We will probably always be tweaking the videos continuously through the lifetime of the company. Here are some of the biggest challenges we have had in tuning the message for Sticky:- What is the product vs vision of its use?
- How do you use the product but not get stuck in the details?
- The tech is cool but what is the value?
- Do we explain ourselves as a data company or a technology platform?
- How do we built trust in the quality of our new services?
- Is this the correct language to explain our product in for potential users?
Key things to create your successful startup product video:
- The company founder or product leader needs to record the first version - on graph paper, ppt or as a product screen cast. I would suggest getting a friend to use an iPhone to do this for you after everyone goes home. Talk them through it just like an elevator pitch. No pressure and keep repeating it until you feel worn out. You will probably hate it, but it is better than anyone else can do and necessary to start the process. Share it with your team the next cay.
- Don't outsource the initial polish - Final Cut and iMovie are powerful enough that you can make a much better video than Drew did in just a few minutes. Tweak it yourself or with help from a friend.
- Work with someone on your team to create a full script - Once you have tried this yourself, you have a starting point. Now create a written script to use for the actual video which touches on the key points you need to highlight and record a second version with simple visuals going through the narrative of the company.
- Send it out to the world immediately - It will be really scary, but post it to your friends on facebook, linkedin, etc and ask for honest feedback and ideas on what works and doesn't. Not only will this give you a realistic feel for what people say, but you may actually find you gain customers by being honest and real. If they can follow your journey, they will believe in the company.
- Answer one question: How does it change your customer's life? - If you can't explain something that people say "WOW" to, it isn't going to work. You don't have to have a huge idea which changes the world, but it does need to impact someone enough that they are willing to proudly share with others.
- Create 3+ very different versions - It is difficult to figure out exactly what will resonate with users. Therefore trying multiple versions where you explain the product, value and usage from extremely different perspectives will help you identify what dimension is resonating. One way could be to explain the user journey. Another could be to show the outcome in their life and a 3rd could be to interview your 5 initial beta users and have them tell stories.
- Survey your potential customers - You can put together a survey for free using Survey Monkey and send out to potential consumers for just a few dollars. Do it today and ask them:
- Who do you see this product working for?
- Would you buy this product yourself?
- How much would you expect to pay for this?
- Would you tell your friends you were using the product?
- What part of the product do you like most if you had to choose one thing?
- How would you explain the product back to me in 2 sentences?
- What didn't make sense in the video?
- And repeat... - It will probably take 10-15 version to get to a really polished one and you may actually get stuck on the video because you realized that part of the product wasn't resonating. That is part of the journey.
- Only then, hire the professionals - You are only wasting money if you ask someone else to create a video about a product you can't successfully explain. But once you are able todo so and have external (real) validation that it works, they can come in and polish it for $10-20k and it is probably well worth your time to do so.
I hope this helps others. Good luck - and if you have any thoughts on how to improve our Sticky videos, please reach out!
