“This is the feature that none of our competitors have, but we have no direct competition !”

“We have tried this out and it works beautifully. Now we just need money to build a few more features to make this scalable” These initial few lines from 1:1 conversations with a few tech/product startups last few weeks — stood out for me

Feature + Business Model: Companies have innovations in many forms. Features, tools, business model etc. And each company is unique as well. Agreed. But one needs to make the sale, customers need to pay to buy, adoption needs to happen and how one will scale in the process to selling fone -to-many is also desirable.

“Its there with me. I know how to do. I have an excel with me — i have prepared it.” But its not visible in the story that you are pitching — aka the slide deck or in your narrative. Yes. There is excitement about the feature or the tool and being obsessed with it is natural, but there also needs to be a business model. In the end the investment is being sought for a business model that shall help move from current stage to next

Focus on Adoption: Its not either/or. Feature-led adoption, business model driven-adoption. Adoption of your solution — thats one input metric that needs to keep growing. What I did in a month, when do I do in a week, when do I then do in a day and so on. To progress in that direction — what alternatives do i have to reach to my audience and at what costs. And how can this experiment lead to “figuring out” that this route currently works best for me as a founder.

I get scared easily when people with titles of “evangelist” or “growth hacking” also talk only of features and tools. But could there also be a way in which — at a point — your solution (tool/feature) can also be a feature in someone else’s business (who can then become your partner/reseller/distributor etc). Would that increase your adoption at scale

Its worth a thought to see if this is also a way in which you solve your growth challenge. If this is in your strategic plan, dont keep in your mind, show with some numbers the approach over a medium term and what this would result in. Allow prospective believers in you to get a peek into your execution plan, which is what they want to hear as well. And try it out

Yes. Its also one of the tools used by strategic investors to plan for acquisitions/investments in other companies, not only for startups. Boils down to adoption and how a tool/feature in the hands of someone else can make it more valuable than the current owner.

Like all aspects route to market is also one of the levers available for exponentially increasing adoption. And yes there is juice that you can extract from this leverage ? Try it. Test it. Evolve.