What You Show Is What They Get!

Technology entrepreneurs, especially those who come from research backgrounds, often tend to make the mistake of assuming too much about potential customers’ interest in technology. Many tend to focus on the capabilities (innards) of the technology and neglect the user-story as mere detail. That assumption could not be more incorrect.

Having been through quite a few sales sessions, we believe that this is likely since technologists are accustomed to interacting in environments with people with similar skills, interests and backgrounds. Selling to customers with microsecond attention spans is worlds apart. The truth of this does not hit like a bucket of cold-water unless one sees much of the audience drifting off to sleep during a sales-pitch.

As the apocryphal saying goes, “perception is reality” and that could not be truer for a startup. Rare is the customer who is interested in the “how” something works, as opposed to “what is in it for me”. A “demo” that does absolutely nothing under the covers, but tells a very good story is a far superior sale than a superb technology that no one understands (read cares about).

While, much of this post might seem rehashed wisdom from other sources, turns out commonsense is very uncommon. An associate recently asked the question “will your mother understand what you do? And if she does…”

We disagree; family, friends etc. are victims of the infamous Hawthorne effect, and anything but proxies for a “customer”. Selling to your “mother” is about as far removed from selling in the real—world, as it is to a fellow researcher.

We have therefore coined a truism for entrepreneurs to keep in mind: What You Show Is What They Get! (WYSIWTG), or its cynical variant "What They See Is What They Get" (WTSIWTG).