Balance is key to accurate startup stories
I’ve worked on most sides of the fence in startup land now — inside a (now Unicorn) from Series A-C, inside VCs, for tech publications —…
I’ve worked on most sides of the fence in startup land now — inside a (now Unicorn) from Series A-C, inside VCs, for tech publications — I’ve seen it all. And one of the most interesting aspects of this industry to me is how you have to hold contradictory ideas in your mind at once.
Take Tesla. There’s a recent spate of articles about other electric car tech. But most of these producers are more like skunkworks for traditional manufacturers, who don’t have anything on the market in a “normal” price range.
Having worked inside a fast growing tech company, the obvious elephant in the room is this: the analysis is being made based on what’s public, instead of what’s being worked on behind closed doors.
If a Model 3 can sell for about £40k, what does the version of that car look like with less acceleration, fewer fancy features around the edges, for a mainstream price point? (Coincidentally, as Musk announced shortly after I wrote this)?
Why doesn’t Telsa do this today? This is already explained in Musk’s notorious blueprint from 2006 :
“enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.”
Similarly, Apple knows what 2021’s iPhone looks like. So you can bet its choices and behaviours today map to a plan for where that’s going.
It’s important to analyse products and decisions with one eye on this knowledge gap. Based on how that company is marketing its product, how it’s lining things up, what might that say about what it *knows* is in the pipeline?
But. This is only half the story.
Equally, I have seen years spent on massive product work and strategic direction that never saw the light of day. I have seen prolific VCs tear through the subtle gaps left in pitch decks. I’ve sat for lunch with software engineers who openly laughed at the idea we were really going to ship what was being promised to customers.
It’s easy to bring only cynicism to analysing this industry. And it’s very easy to bring an enthusiastic optimism for the positive potential for these companies to improve our world.
As ever, the truth is in balance somewhere in the middle.
Communications
This comes with a kind of balancing act and responsibility when shaping your communications strategy. Musk overpromises. But he ends up somewhere still ahead of the competition. Not everyone has that mission or asset.
Equally you have got to be careful about overextending on promise if the product you are working on may never see the light of day.
And above all, you’re probably going to need a bit of luck with how your public reacts, and where you are in the startup story life cycle.