Lesson 16: Winning

Winning Helps Your Story and Story Helps You Win

One win can supercharge your story as a start-up. A single win will position you to attract more resources, more talent, and more opportunities. You want to tell a winning story because a winning story helps you win more. Once you get your first win, you can amplify it, multiply it, and energize others with it. In a sense, your story will do the work for you.

What you need to do is shape that story with a win that means something special for your start-up – either getting that lead investor that fits your business, that first round closed, or even landing a key hire. Moreover, getting that big customer contract is also a major win that can bring in the investment dollars as it is a sign of incoming revenue. With these ingredients, your story becomes compelling – even irresistible – to investors who are on the fence about taking a bet on you.

You may say that you have several milestones to fill up your story as a start-up founder and leader. You can point to your milestone of an MVP (minimum viable product) being tested in the market. You can point to the milestone of opening an office with X number of employees. You could also point to the milestone of having a feature article written about your company in the local newspaper. But there is a difference between milestones and wins.

A story that is built on a few key wins will almost always triumph over a story that is mired in milestones, especially inwardly focused ones, such as renting your first office. Bottom line: What investors mostly invest in are wins. They will invest in your company when they see that you have the win of a lead investor – one who is credible, committed, and competent in doing due diligence. They will invest in your company when they see the big customer win, which means traction – an important element we have emphasized over and over in this course as the catapult for momentum for your business.

Your wins need to be rolled up into your story. When you have the wins, your story becomes simpler, which means it becomes more memorable. Imagine walking onto an elevator and bumping into one of the top investors in town; you say, “My company has secured our lead investor, signed a major contract with one of the top 20 distributors in our industry, and just closed our first round of funding. Plus, we are in a market projected to grow at least 20 percent year over year for the next five years. Any questions?” 

You may or may not be that bold on an elevator, but you get the point. Two or three key wins give you a story that immediately makes you stand out in a crowded field. You don’t need to boil the ocean. You need to strengthen your story as a start-up – one win at a time and make it easy for investors to say yes to your business.