Four stories you need to give when you're a start-up.

When you start a business, you need to give four different stories.

Story one: to your investors;

Story two: to your team;

Story three: to the media;

Story four: to the public.

Story one: to sell to investors

As far as VCs and angels are concerned, they are often not going to invest in a particular technology industry, but will be pitching to a team that exudes innovative potential and can use innovative methods to solve pressing problems. So you need a story to be able to prove both sides.

Selling to potential investors, you must use a short, elegant , trusted solution, such as bringing your innovative concept to four words, making it sound catchy and unique.

Here, for example, a company trying to get into the green energy micro-auction industry might envision itself as a hybrid of multiple models. So if they are to attract investors ' attention, rather than being "Napster in the green energy industry (the company's last dismal end)", they should be reduced to "peer-to-peer green energy Auctions".

In Hollywood, this small phrase is called the "story sketch". The storyline runs through the assembly line of writers, producers, and studio leaders, and is the first step in letting everyone decide to read the script. So this "story sketch" must be able to embody your innovative ideas, and a rotten sentence will "ruin the whole show." Only by trying to pass the "story sketch" of the first trial, you can have the opportunity to show your whole idea.

So read and polish your "four-word story" over and over again until you write the story that suits your startup.

Well, now you've designed a good investor story, but you're not done yet. Next, you need to change the story to help you explain the value of your innovation efforts with the team, the media, and the public.

Story two: Managing Your team

This story can serve as an important fulcrum for your team to test business decisions. For example, for a long time, Google's "organization of Global Information" has played a very good role in this, so that Google's engineers have a "how to be successful in the company," the overall principle.

Try translating your four-word story into a "four story" that suits the different levels of the company, department, team, and individual.

Back to the "Peer-to-peer Green energy Company" example.

Company level: Everyone's green energy.

Design team: Timely (energy) information, better (energy) decision-making.

Team member Eunice Ives: Better Design requirements detection alerts

In this way, employees Eunice Ives can go back to the story chain, say what she is doing and why, understand her role in the team and the company, and the company's role in the marketplace.

Putting these together, Eunice Ives can tell the whole story to colleagues, friends, managers and herself: "I'm designing new requirements detection alerts to help users get timely information and make better energy decisions." We do this in the hope that in the future, no one can use green energy. ”

Story three: Communicating with the media

In the face of the media, you need to use a small set of stories (such as personal, corporate growth stories) to address some of the current focus. Sometimes these stories can focus on user needs and explain how your product fits into a larger cultural landscape. At other times, these stories can also be extended from the immediate focus to the company's core values and goals.

Part of the media story will appear on the company's official blog, and the rest is in informal conversations with the media, public comments, decision-making briefings, speeches, product descriptions, APP store descriptions, and even a user support team response.

Story four: Draw attention to the public

Finally, you need a story to tell the public why you want to focus on your product, and this is your popular story. Forget about functional descriptions, statistics, App updates, and feature improvements, all you need is a story that addresses the basic needs of people.

Please tell a funny, mournful, scary or stupid story--but first, it's a story based on human needs. Ignore technical details and show us how to live a better life!

Stories about the media, the team, and the investors make it hard to get the public to love your product. Some of these stories may look like popular stories, especially stories written by journalists that focus on the interests of the user, or investor stories that focus on human needs. However, none of them can be used directly on potential users. You need to write a special story to show that your product can lead to a better life for the masses.

Finally, if you find that your product can not effectively improve people's quality of life, then please improve the function of the product, change the company model; if that doesn't work, then you should go for it.