You know how companies often try to describe themselves in terms of other startups? As in.. “I heard about this great new company – it’s like MySpace + YouTube.”
Oh brother.
Startup junkies please note. This is not a good way to describe your company. You are saying “I am derivative” instead of “I am innovative.”
Just today I was introduced to a company by someone (not the entrepreneur, so she’s off the hook for now) who said it was like “YouTube + Second Life + Del.icio.us + Joost + MySpace + MapQuest” (a few terms were changed to protect the not so innocent). Now you tell me – what the hell is that? Bookmarkable broadcast-ready geo-tagged videos containing 3D representations of peoples friends cats? – huh?!?
Instead of thinking in math, maybe they should think in colors. Red + Blue + Green + Purpose + Orange = a mess.
How about telling me what problem your product solves or what you make that everybody is going to want to use? Better yet, how about just giving me a URL and saying “check this out.” I’d much rather hear about it or see it than try to figure out all of the operands in this silly sort of math.
David, thanks for posting this; I keep hearing a comparison of something else in relation to some of what we’re doing. The biggest problem I have is that I don’t have time/care to keep up with every little widget/social space/service that pops up on the web, so comparing a product to something else (especially a NEW something else) means absolutely nothing to me. I’d rather hear what it does, instead of the comparison – especially when it’s a combination of things (math, as you called it). I don’t know how that got started, but it annoys the hell out of me, too. I thought maybe I was the only one – and not because of the “imitator aspect” (I hadn’t thought about that), but because I’m just not hip. 😉
David, can you email me the contact info for this company? I’d like to invest. My investment philosophy is like Foundry + Union Square Ventures.
Awesome.
I try to avoid comparisons like that, but sometimes others make them for me.
http://ColoradoStartups.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif
Sorry, couldn’t resist!
@Scott – um, I’m sure I’ve done this alot in the past, but there is no “math” in that post. I think a comparison or analog is fine. It’s the IMDB of law makes sense to me, it’s something that works applied to a different space. If you said it’s IMDB + Facebook then you get the “oh brother” response from me because 1) it’s not really descriptive and 2) it sounds like it’s trying to combine two successful things vs applying it to a new space. Know what I mean?
David, you make perfect sense. You are like the square root of (Paris Hilton + Warren Buffett)/(Noam Chomsky * Neal Armstrong).
Damn, I was going for Arrington + Graham. Oh well.
I shouldn’t joke, because I totally agree. I think what you are saying is that a comparison should be illustrative, rather than just a buzz word. And, by the way, nice job remembering that LGDB is the IMDb of Legislation.
exactly. i think “the imdb of legislature” is a nice illustration, assuming you’re familiar with imdb of course.
i think “popular thing” + “popular thing” tells me very little and just sounds silly.
big difference.
and yeah, i know, you gave me that phrase and it immediately made sense to me.
clearly i’m being too anal – something just hit a nerve yesterday.