Observe Beyond Words

> Observe: notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.

• definition

Sometimes your observations tell you more than the founders' pitch, their value prop, and their carefully chosen words.

Actually, more often than you'd expect.

When you're interviewing stakeholders about their startup, their competition, what's in it for their users, you gain more insight by watching how they answer than by what they say. Body language. Hesitation. An eye roll, a grimace, a tired look, a whisper, a cheeky retort, a side glance. All of it hints at something worth following up on.

When you're having a conversation rather than running an interrogation, these things are easier to catch, and they tell you to ask more questions.

A founder might be holding something back. Or your questions might be pushing them past their rehearsed pitch into territory that hasn't been mapped yet. Either way, you're moving them outside their comfort zone. And that's where you find the words and angles that never made it into the deck.

Some of these new directions lead nowhere. Some open up positioning possibilities that hadn't been considered, or were actively avoided. That discomfort can take your message somewhere more accurate, sharpen how you're positioned, and make your actual value far clearer.

Pay attention. Notice how answers are delivered. Keep digging.