Julian Shapiro

Storyteller at Startup investor at Julian. capital & Ilive on a ranch, and I honestly recommend it.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

It's done! I read 3,000 startup pitch decks.
I wanted to find what the incredible pitches had in common.
Was there a "secret ingredient" unifying them?
YES. The 4 best (that VCs wanted intros to) had the same talking point:

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

And if you're building something dope in hardware or the sciences, consider submitting your deck to Deep Checks VC. It's where the best scientific founders get funded.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

When a post-product business is still a young startup, it's not a traditional business yet.

*It's an experimentation factory in search of distribution insights and storytelling.*

Set your priorities accordingly.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Put another way, Synthesis’ pitch isn’t just value props.

Rather, it’s a story that customers partake in.

So, keep this in mind:

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

The message: If it's good enough for Elon, it's good enough for you.

That narrative piqued the curiosity of skeptical Elon-favoring parents and led to millions in profitable ad spend because parents gravitated toward genesis narratives justifying what made something fresh.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Here's an example of storytelling. I call this a "genesis narrative:"

At Synthesis, their CEO told the true story of how their cutting-edge, online, interactive game that helps children become better at problem-solving is a spinoff of Elon's school for his kids at SpaceX.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

The skill of growth doesn’t just consist of getting the word out, but also in presenting your value in a way that *resonates.*

That means distribution is (1) growth engines and (2) great storytelling.

That's where the best founders I've backed often win.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Meaning, customer adoption isn't just about whether you provide more value than the status quo.

It's also about whether users can PERCEIVE that big value reflexively.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

For people to try your product, you should present your product in a way that people intuitively FEEL how much better you are than your competition and perceive ENOUGH of an improvement to warrant QUICKLY switching plus enduring your switching costs.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Distribution has at least two components.

The first is the HOW: the channel that you use to get the word out, e.g. PLA or ads.

The second is the WHAT: what is your message—and whether it's compelling enough to resonate.

Meaning:

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Once again, by using the app, you encourage others to sign up and grow the userbase.

I talk about more ways to do PLA on my site. For now, the takeaway:

For software companies, put a bunch of energy into your distribution insight—not just your product insight.

One last thing.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Here’s another example:

If you Venmo or PayPal someone who doesn’t yet have an account on those platforms, they will create an account in order to claim the $1,000 you sent them.

Because who isn't going to take 30 secs to claim money they're owed?

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Another subtype of PLA is *deliberate user invitations:* When you join Slack, you naturally invite your team and contractors so you can talk with them easily.

By doing so, you’re growing Slack’s user base for them—sparing them the need to spend money on ads.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

I call that billboarding.

It's a form of my favorite distribution strategy for most startups: product-led acquisition (PLA).

PLA means your users naturally invite other users just by using your product.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

For Hotmail, pioneers of cloud email, their growth strategy was including an email signature that said “Sent through Hotmail.“

Everyone you emailed suddenly learned about the product. That's free viral distribution.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

First, it's OK if your distribution insight starts as a hack.

For Airbnb, their early approach was cross-posting room listings to Craigslist where people were already desperately searching for places to stay.

Airbnb had the inventory craiglist needed, and they took off.

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

And when you're NOT novel, your major advantage is going to be a distribution edge combined with great retention.

Okay, finally, so how do you crush distribution? What do the best startups do?

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Companies with actually novel and defensible products can often focus more on product than distribution. However, few software companies are actually novel. Instead, novelty exists more often today within deeptech (hardware, robotics, energy, chips, etc.)

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

Paul Graham spoke about it too:

"Don't start a startup where you need to go through someone else to get users." —Paul Graham

There are exceptions, of course:

[Julian Shapiro @782ritika]

"Distribution is essential to the design of the product. If you invent something but you haven't invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business. Superior distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true."