No Adjectives Please!

I was having breakfast this morning with Salil Deshpande from Bay Partners (now at Bain Capital Ventures). Salil and I were talking about assessing company progress and how best to measure that progress. Salil invests in super early-stage deals and has his companies report to him on their progress on a frequent basis. He said that he had one CEO who would report on his progress in such florid language that eventually Salil had to forbid his use of adjectives in his progress reports. Salil said that he didn't want to hear that things were going great. He wanted to hear precisely how things were going.

I nearly jumped out of my seat. Salil had articulated one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to company pitches (and board meetings for that matter). I hate adjectives. I don't want to hear that one of the company founders is a "fantastic sales exec." I want to hear that she was Presidents Club the last twelve years running. I don't want to hear that the product is "revolutionary and paradigm-shifting." I want to hear about the specific features of the product that are differentiated and how. I don't want to hear that the company has "massive market traction." I want to see a graph of progressive quarterly sales and a giant sales pipeline.

Adjectives are not convincing. Facts are convincing. I may not agree with the conclusions a company draws from those facts. But I will at least be in a position to appropriately assess those conclusions. Whereas adjectives are all about conclusions without the underlying facts. As an entrepreneur, you are far better off having me determine that your market is "massive," your founders are "brilliant," and your product is "elegant," than to tell me that your company has "an elegant solution serving a massive market designed by brilliant founders." So reread your pitch and remove all of the adjectives. It will go massively, monumentally, gargantuanly. colossally better that way.

Comments

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This is a brilliant^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H post.

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I was just reading some of your archives and stumbled across the Labor v. Capital dodge ball game.

It sounds like fun. If you decide to host another, how about including Attorneys? It could be Labor and Company side attorneys v. Capital and Investor side attorneys.

I'll even waive my fee!

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you'd love a GE pitch then, first slide on the deck is called a 4-up or 4-banger, literally 4 slides-in-one on the first slide and it better all be #'s and graphs

jos

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Facts speaks for themselves

[Jeff Solomon]

I read this post some time ago and made a note to re-read it every time I prepare for a board meeting. Well, that time has arrived again and this was a timely jog to my memory. Rarely are adjectives used in lieu of facts. I think we (entrepreneurs) use adjectives when we either haven't done the work to track an metrics or we don't want to face the truth that the facts are not pretty.

[kellyh99.myopenid.com]

I'm going to be using your post as ammunition, it can't be said enough. Adjectives are for people who haven't done the work.

[https://me.yahoo.com/a/hUrZaasa0ZB6ieFQ6D.6aHcLaNVP4Lzfpg--#0eb09]

Great points. The truth lies in the facts, and the facts only. The question I have, particularly in regards to assessing market competition, when are too many facts too much. What is the right amount of facts to provide without overwhelming or losing the attention of the VC? ... www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2

[https://me.yahoo.com/a/quPEVi89wNnGo.Kw2HioWpTgNZ6FbU1oKENKnw--#5cf85]

Thanks for the suggestions. Very useful to have your perspective.
However, massively, monumentally, gargantuanly and colossally are adverbs. But I agree they maybe annoying as well as the adjectives :)
Ciao,
C

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