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The most interesting part to me was this: "He’d been telling a version of that same story every single day for months and months during development—to us, to hi

The most interesting part to me was this: "He’d been telling a version of that same story every single day for months and months during development—to us, to his friends, his family. He was constantly working on it, refining it. Every time he’d get a puzzled look or a request for clarification from his unwitting early audience, he’d sand it down, tweak it slightly, until it was perfectly polished." I did the same thing for 12 years as CEO of Postmates and I still do it when I work on new ideas. I thought it was something I just did. But reading this I have to assume it is more common.

tiffanyh 2y ago
Just curious, what was the same story you said every single day for 12-years?
- bastian 2y ago
  Probably a bad choice of words on my part. I was referring to the stories of the products we worked on, not the same story for 12 years.
contingencies 2y ago
Hey Bastian, would love to have a chat about the impact of total automation in the food space (prep, package, deliver). We have 10 years R&D down, about to raise US GTM round, didn't find you on LinkedIn, email in profile. Cheers.
- bastian 2y ago
  I deleted my LinkedIn. Email or text me. 415 629 9329 or bastianlehmann@gmail.com - I do not like to invest in anything related to food though.
  - contingencies 2y ago
    Cheers much appreciated. Will reach out.
neom 2y ago
It's one of the first lessons I teach the founders in my classes, I learned it building DigitalOcean, I think it was Michael Dell who told me "yeah your job just becomes saying the same thing different ways all the time". Best I've seen at it is Flo the founder of mesosphere. Don't think you can build a startup into a business if you can't learn how to do this.
- matwood 2y ago
  And it’s a good lesson. The first hurdle for many (me included) was getting over the fact I’m going to repeat myself - a lot. And that’s ok. There’s a reason Coca-Cola still advertises. Repetition works. When telling someone the story, you never know what’s in their head at that moment. They might be thinking about some other important thing they have to do that day and not hear anything you said.
nicbou 2y ago
I do the same thing when I have a new idea. If people don’t seem as excited, I either refine the story or reconsider it entirely. It tests the idea, but also my understanding of why I want to build it. Is my hype justified or will it falter once the caffeine wears off?
matwood 2y ago
I also do this as I refine any pitch. I tell it to everyone over and over, tweaking it slightly, refining, etc… One difference is I don’t think the polishing ever ends until it’s time to move on to something else.
veunes 2y ago
It makes me wonder how many great products were shaped not just in boardrooms or dev sprints, but in casual conversations with friends and family.
itronitron 2y ago
How do you avoid annoying everyone around you, or does being CEO mean you don't have to worry about it?
- philodeon 2y ago
  Just as movie stars get paid a lot to compensate for dealing with the unpleasant life-ruining consequences of fame, CEOs get paid a lot to compensate for the monotony.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
thom 2y ago
For me the internal part of this is far more important than any external pitch. Storytelling is a key skill for keeping an organisation aligned. Every company I've worked for that felt disjointed wasn't because of a lack of structure or process, it was the lack of a unifying narrative that people can follow and weave their work into. Once you have that, the sales and marketing part is pretty natural because you're already living the message like you mean it.
- BOOSTERHIDROGEN 2y ago
  The question is how do you find such unique narratives? Who decide it is unique.
  - smugglerFlynn 2y ago
    Uniqueness is not the end goal, first and foremost it should be competitive. Just highlight where exactly you do things differently (and better) than others. If that's not possible to formulate even internally, the company is in trouble.
  - neom 2y ago
    Tail Winds + Vision into-> Mission into-> Purpose. A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision. If you can paint a good vision, you can then explain some missions people could go on over the period of time that matches your vision that results in positive things for the group, this is how an individual finds their purpose and is a prerequisite for a high functioning team (see tuckman's). The reason this is hard from a leadership perspective is that humans do not hear messages the same way, so you have to do what we call message modulation, where you tell the story many different ways depending on the constituent you're addressing until or such that, they understand what you are saying. You also have to be careful your modulation doesn't introduce confusion, 1 2 | 3 4 - if pipe is your baseline message, to be good at this, you have to think about what happens when 1 and 4 converse.
rottc0dd 2y ago
Even just saying the whole thing out loud again and again, makes the talk better. Because, you would understand what you whizzing past, what you are spending time on and reduces the time you would buffer while talking.
rjsw 2y ago
I see "mansplaining" as a variant of this.
neilv 2y ago
I don't know how common it is for the different people who do an elevator pitch, but IIUC most successful standup comedians do this incremental testing and refining of bits very heavily. One difference I'd call out is that the delivery is different in what's understood as a formal rehearsed performance, than when speaking in informal one-on-one contexts. IMHO, for informal, it's OK if you use pretty much the same canned explanation each time (especially for an elevator pitch, which is understood as a thing), just don't pretend you're speaking off-the-cuff. For example, don't pause like you're thinking of the right term or analogy to use. (I've seen Steve Jobs videos where he seems to do this. And I had a colleague who would do it for one key metaphor term, even though they said the same bit about their research to different visitors almost every day.) If you go to a standup performance or TED talk, you're expecting a heavily-rehearsed performance, with artificial flourishes. But if you're having a one-on-one conversation with someone, you want a bespoke, genuine, engaged, adaptive interaction. Canned bits in that are OK, but don't pretend those bits are fresh.
- darkerside 2y ago
  You can still do that, just know it's disingenuous, inauthentic, and disrespectful to your audience. May be worth it to you, for example if you don't care about that particular audience.
e40 2y ago
It’s exactly what standup comedians do, over months and years, before filming a special.

tiffanyh 2y ago

Just curious, what was the same story you said every single day for 12-years?

bastian 2y ago
Probably a bad choice of words on my part. I was referring to the stories of the products we worked on, not the same story for 12 years.

contingencies 2y ago

Hey Bastian, would love to have a chat about the impact of total automation in the food space (prep, package, deliver). We have 10 years R&D down, about to raise US GTM round, didn't find you on LinkedIn, email in profile. Cheers.

bastian 2y ago
I deleted my LinkedIn. Email or text me. 415 629 9329 or bastianlehmann@gmail.com - I do not like to invest in anything related to food though.
- contingencies 2y ago
  Cheers much appreciated. Will reach out.

neom 2y ago

It's one of the first lessons I teach the founders in my classes, I learned it building DigitalOcean, I think it was Michael Dell who told me "yeah your job just becomes saying the same thing different ways all the time". Best I've seen at it is Flo the founder of mesosphere. Don't think you can build a startup into a business if you can't learn how to do this.

matwood 2y ago
And it’s a good lesson. The first hurdle for many (me included) was getting over the fact I’m going to repeat myself - a lot. And that’s ok. There’s a reason Coca-Cola still advertises. Repetition works. When telling someone the story, you never know what’s in their head at that moment. They might be thinking about some other important thing they have to do that day and not hear anything you said.

nicbou 2y ago

I do the same thing when I have a new idea. If people don’t seem as excited, I either refine the story or reconsider it entirely. It tests the idea, but also my understanding of why I want to build it. Is my hype justified or will it falter once the caffeine wears off?

matwood 2y ago

I also do this as I refine any pitch. I tell it to everyone over and over, tweaking it slightly, refining, etc… One difference is I don’t think the polishing ever ends until it’s time to move on to something else.

veunes 2y ago

It makes me wonder how many great products were shaped not just in boardrooms or dev sprints, but in casual conversations with friends and family.

itronitron 2y ago

How do you avoid annoying everyone around you, or does being CEO mean you don't have to worry about it?

philodeon 2y ago
Just as movie stars get paid a lot to compensate for dealing with the unpleasant life-ruining consequences of fame, CEOs get paid a lot to compensate for the monotony.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

thom 2y ago

For me the internal part of this is far more important than any external pitch. Storytelling is a key skill for keeping an organisation aligned. Every company I've worked for that felt disjointed wasn't because of a lack of structure or process, it was the lack of a unifying narrative that people can follow and weave their work into. Once you have that, the sales and marketing part is pretty natural because you're already living the message like you mean it.

BOOSTERHIDROGEN 2y ago
The question is how do you find such unique narratives? Who decide it is unique.
- smugglerFlynn 2y ago
  Uniqueness is not the end goal, first and foremost it should be competitive. Just highlight where exactly you do things differently (and better) than others. If that's not possible to formulate even internally, the company is in trouble.
- neom 2y ago
  Tail Winds + Vision into-> Mission into-> Purpose. A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision. If you can paint a good vision, you can then explain some missions people could go on over the period of time that matches your vision that results in positive things for the group, this is how an individual finds their purpose and is a prerequisite for a high functioning team (see tuckman's). The reason this is hard from a leadership perspective is that humans do not hear messages the same way, so you have to do what we call message modulation, where you tell the story many different ways depending on the constituent you're addressing until or such that, they understand what you are saying. You also have to be careful your modulation doesn't introduce confusion, 1 2 | 3 4 - if pipe is your baseline message, to be good at this, you have to think about what happens when 1 and 4 converse.

rottc0dd 2y ago

Even just saying the whole thing out loud again and again, makes the talk better. Because, you would understand what you whizzing past, what you are spending time on and reduces the time you would buffer while talking.

rjsw 2y ago

I see "mansplaining" as a variant of this.

neilv 2y ago

I don't know how common it is for the different people who do an elevator pitch, but IIUC most successful standup comedians do this incremental testing and refining of bits very heavily. One difference I'd call out is that the delivery is different in what's understood as a formal rehearsed performance, than when speaking in informal one-on-one contexts. IMHO, for informal, it's OK if you use pretty much the same canned explanation each time (especially for an elevator pitch, which is understood as a thing), just don't pretend you're speaking off-the-cuff. For example, don't pause like you're thinking of the right term or analogy to use. (I've seen Steve Jobs videos where he seems to do this. And I had a colleague who would do it for one key metaphor term, even though they said the same bit about their research to different visitors almost every day.) If you go to a standup performance or TED talk, you're expecting a heavily-rehearsed performance, with artificial flourishes. But if you're having a one-on-one conversation with someone, you want a bespoke, genuine, engaged, adaptive interaction. Canned bits in that are OK, but don't pretend those bits are fresh.

darkerside 2y ago
You can still do that, just know it's disingenuous, inauthentic, and disrespectful to your audience. May be worth it to you, for example if you don't care about that particular audience.

e40 2y ago

It’s exactly what standup comedians do, over months and years, before filming a special.