Feedback on Value Proposition or Elevator Pitch
Currently the 1-sentence elevator pitch for Lakebed is:
The Lakebed app allows you to quickly create data lakes, from any number of sources, for easy storage, permission management, and API access.
I've just finished Lean Startup and now reading Lean B2B. It correctly says "focus on value, not features", which makes me think the current elevator pitch or value proposition doesn't quite meet that. I'm thinking this says the same thing but focuses a bit more on the value customers will see:
The Lakebed app easily stores data from many sources thereby quickly leveraging the value of data in analysis, reports, data-driven decisions, and apps.
Thoughts and feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Best tip: Read it out loud.
What does Lakebed do?
The Lakebed app easily stores data from many sources thereby quickly leveraging the value of data in analysis, reports, data-driven decisions, and apps.
You would never vomit this out of your mouth to someone you were talking to, don't write it either.
Let's break this down:
The Lakebed app
easily stores data - how? I didn't know it was hard?
from many sources - what sources?
thereby quickly leveraging - terrible wording - doesn't say anything
the value of data in analysis - what value?
reports - I know what these are
data-driven decisions - great isn't everything data driven?
and apps - apps for what?
Good god that's a lot of overly vague statements that unfortunately tells me absolutely nothing. In one sentence I have five questions. FIVE!
Here's my rewrite:
"The Lakebed App combines multiple [public/private] data sources allowing you to gather insights and output detailed reports easier than ever before. With all your data in one place every decision becomes data-driven."
In bullet point form:
Just add the word "to" between the statements.
I think the concept is interesting - just make sure you can explain it to people.
Thanks very much, I appreciate your feedback and I think you've definitely given me steps forward.
:)
Some comments:
.. The revised/new 1-sentence definitely shows much more of "value", but the sentence structure is still too complex (especially use of "thereby").
.. I'd try more natural spoken form: "Get all your data to one place, effortlessly/easily/fast. Then X" where X is the value you provide.
.. The part "from any number of sources" is problematic: you don't or cannot support all possible sources. And if you support "any number of sources" by having 1000 instances of the same source, then that is kind of misleading.
.. The part "and apps" is somewhat curious.. data lakes (in the classic definition) are too unstructured and have too unstable schema to use as basis for apps.
.. Inversely, saying "Lakebed app" is not optimal: when you are building a data platform, you don't want to sound like "mobile app".
.. Also, value prop is defined roughly as "promise of your unique value" or "value compared to others". In your case, there is a lot of competition, so the value prop probably should include differentiator: perhaps your stuff is the easiest to get data into?
Good luck