How to tell your story
Who lives, who tweets, who tells your story? Boy, that's a smooth Hamilton reference.
Two newsletters in a single week? What is this, Christmas?
I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’m in a mood to write. I guess it helps me summarize my own thoughts and clear through the rubble, so as much as I appreciate all of you, I’ve realized sending this newsletter is actually beneficial to my mental health.
If you have the chance, I suggest you give writing a shot.
Let’s start the day off with a classic:
A girl was at her mother’s funeral. She met a guy that she hadn’t seen before. She instantly fell in love with this guy. She tried to meet him before everyone left the funeral, but wasn’t able to. She hoped that he would come through the condolence line, but he didn’t. She asked everyone who was at the funeral if they knew him, but no one did. She tried to find him for weeks, but was unsuccessful.
Every lead just ended with another dead end. After a few weeks, she was at her wits end when she decided to kill her sister.
Why did she decide to kill her sister?
An answer, as usual, at the end.
Before we jump into today’s rant - I’m seeing a lot of new subscribers (welcome, y’all) come in, which is exciting. I’m curious - where’d you hear about Lateral Thinking?
You can reply to this email or just
Meanwhile, don’t forget:
Be familiar
Frequent readers know I rarely talk about business here, but I recently realized something that I think would be valuable for others.
When we started Blindspot and were trying to get our first clients in the US, we always focused on how unique we are.
How you should forget everything you know and take a look at our new way of doing things.
We tried to stay away from the “Google Ads for billboards” and other “Uber for X” definitions because we felt they were way too overused.
And, after all, we were unique so we wanted to tell a unique story.
What we didn’t account for is that there’s a reason they’re so used. They work.
I remember recently seeing an investor that brushed us off years ago for saying we’re “X for Y” promoting his most recent investment as… you guessed it… an “X for Y”.
It’s easy to preach until you get your hands dirty for the first time.
A lot of times, you have to use the story people are most familiar with. It’s a storytelling technique (look up the Monomyth if you’re curious) that’s been used in almost every major story in our collective history. Almost any story from Cinderella to Call of Duty use these elements in order to draw the reader (or player) in.
If you’re a first time founder, you’ll frown at this. You don’t want to walk the beaten path. It’s why you wanted a startup in the first place - to disrupt, to innovate, to change the way things are done.
What we often forget is that disruption needs to feel familiar for it to gain adoption. VR and AR are inspired from Sci-Fi movies. Space travel and Mars are getting so much attention because of their brilliant marketing.
Your product might be unlike anything humanity has ever seen. But it needs to sound like something people can recognize.
The fact that the “metaverse” is a hot topic just a few years after the hugely popular Ready Player One book (and then movie) was released is no coincidence.
So don’t be afraid to market yourself, your business, your project or your clients as something that already exists.
Find a unique angle, combine two things that people already know (this is why “X for Y” works so well), compare yourself with the titans of industry (“Like Disney if it was R-rated”), but make sure you keep a sense of familiarity, otherwise your message will get lost in the clutter.
Answer: The girl was hoping to see the man again at her sister’s funeral.
Note: you might have seen this puzzle online under the guise of “this test will show you if you’re a psychopath”. That’s bullshit.