When explaining what your startup actually does, who are you explaining it to?
Is it the end-user, the actual buyer or decision-maker, an influencer, a potential partner, or perhaps you’re simply pitching to your mom in order to see how clear your message is?
Whoever your audience is, you have to be aware of it ahead of time and clearly define it.
I don’t mean building specific personas and giving the individual a name, age, marital status, hair color, or whatever, but understanding what is their pain, so you may correctly pitch how you alleviate it.
For example, a dev team member may seek a solution to save time or automate a process, so they can attend to other things, but money savings aren’t their highest priority (that’s someone else’s responsibility). But on the other hand, the same team’s leader may be interested in those money savings as well as improving team collaboration.
Now your product or solution may help both (or more), but your pitch, your sales enablement, and your message have to be appropriate to who you’re approaching, so they understand your value clearly, and you generate the results (or feedback) you seek and need for growth.
At the end of the day, if you aren’t preaching to the correct crowd, then you’re wasting time, money, and effort on ineffective activities.
So before you pitch, take a minute (or more) and clarify who you’re really talking to.