After another great conversation with an entrepreneur, I wanted to reiterate the importance of the one sentence pitch. If you can’t explain your product in a sentence, chances are good that anyone you try pitch it to will be completely confused by the time you get to the gem about “restructuring the social graph.”

Restructure The Social Graph

Here is a little exercise.

“Company A is a platform that enables professional and social groups of all types and sizes to create Capsules. Capsules empower groups to share, communicate and network without loosing control of their brand, privacy or members. They combine the best features of discussion forums, email lists, calendars and social networks…”

After over 50 words of text it is still difficult to visualize what Company A does. It has something to do with groups, I think. Even this is only a very tame example. Many other tech companies have pitches so loaded with web jargon that they read more like exercises in marketing satire than anything else.

A better way to describe a site that creates groups to help organize companies and businesses is to just say that.

“Company A is a product that allows professionals to create private, branded groups that combine all the best features of forums and online communities.”

Even this is only a rough solution. Still, in half the words of the original, this version manages to provide almost as much value to the reader. In fact I would say it’s better, as it’s easier to get a feeling for what Company A actually does.

Web 2.0 Roundup

When writing a pitch, discussing your startup or communicating in general remember that brevity and clarity are worth a thousand words.

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