Building a badass brand, positioning your startup to raise VC, and strategizing the hell out of relationships were just some of the lessons imparted at the Third Annual Freestyle Fashion Conference, organized by OS Fashion’s Pavan Bahl, and Andrew Young, and while the conference was focused on the fashion tech world, good advice is good advice and applies to all startups. Listen and learn:
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Image credit: Frank Fukuchi
BUILD A BADASS BRAND
Be the Apple of Your World
“Apple spends billions of dollars to reach billions of customers, small brands just have to scale that back,” said Pia Silva, partner at Worstofall Design, while Jeff Madoff, founder of Madoff Productions, reminded the crowd that “building a brand is a marathon:” you can’t ever stop running. Don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged, they also suggested, reassuringly. It’s not necessary to do it from scratch. Just see who’s already out there doing it, then refine it and do it better, being careful not to over tweak. “Don’t spin your wheels getting it perfect. Just put yourself out there and then continually refine,” Silva encouraged.
Find Your Magic Space
“What can you sell that no one else is selling, that your customer needs? That’s the magic space where you need to be,” Silva recommended. Niche marketing can pay off big when the right people, product, and time come along to collect the spoils of a new market.
POSITION TO RAISE VC
With a badass brand positioned in the “magic” space, it’s time to raise VC. FashInvest founder David Freschman and Comcast Ventures’ Daniel Gulati offered their expert opinions and insight into the fashion tech startup scene. Gulati opened up about what he’s looking for and where he wants to spend his dollars.
Make Sure You’ve Got the Grit
That’s the #1 characteristic Gulati wants in entrepreneurs. “It takes brute force. You have to be able to break boundaries, walk through walls and be creative with solutions.” Grit allows startups to withstand any storm, while those who are only passionate will easily get blown over.
Get Started Now
“It’s never been easier to experiment and cheaper to fail than now. You can really get pretty far with a small check,” Gulati said, referencing readily available and cheap technology. And the best time to do it is now, both agreed. “You don’t know if it will be there tomorrow. And if someone offers you money, just take it. Don’t be hung up on your valuation.”
It’s Not So Much the Pitch, but the Meat Behind it.
Gulati doesn’t pay attention to how polished the slides are or how good the pitch is. “I think some of the best entrepreneurs are introverted and can’t sell. I’m more interested in how awesome the business idea is.” Freschman admitted that he can easily pick out which accelerator a startup has been through, based on their pitch. “There’s a formula behind them all, and the accelerator model should be not so much the pitch, but what’s the meat behind it.”
STRATEGIZE THE HELL OUT OF RELATIONSHIPS
As a relationship expert who studied interactions between more than 3000 people, Michael Roderick of Small Pond Enterprises, LLC shared strategies on building and maximizing relationships. Naturally gifted in this area, he studied what he was doing and why it worked, and then broke it down for the rest of us.
How to Have a Successful Conversation with Anyone
Roderick suggests the following conversation strategy breakdown to maximize engagement:
20% Professional: What is your business?
15% Personal: What are your interests?
30% Inspirational: Why are you doing what you are doing?
15% Problematic: What are some hurdles you are overcoming?
20% Aspirational: What are your goals?
“Many people want to just talk business or only complain about problems, but it’s essential to have well rounded conversations to keep things interesting.”
Ask for What You Need
D.I.M.E is the acronym Roderick created to identify the four types of “asks:”
Direct Ask: Bluntly ask for what you want, but be careful, as this can often evoke fight or flight mode.
Indirect Ask: Create a value proposition and ask who would be a good fit, a typically much more effective strategy than a direct ask.
Mutually Beneficial Ask: The most powerful type of ask, but also the most work, where both parties benefit.
Extraordinary Ask: Any time that you think “I couldn’t ask for that” falls into this category. Everyone else is not asking for this, as they’re also thinking, “I couldn’t ask for that,” so they’re doing you a favor by carving the path for those who have the guts to do it.
No matter how you ask, Roderick reminds us to treat people like humans, and “show that you’re more interested in who they are and what they do. Don’t make people feel like an ATM [dispensing money or knowledge].”
THE TAKEAWAY
While the Freestyle Fashion Conference focuses on fashion, most everything presented was valid, and key to general entrepreneurial success. Having a pitch committed to memory and a good deck are important, but much of the conversation centered around the need for good ideas from passionate people who are focused on delivering innovation. The wisdom put forward form the panels and workshops highlighted the fact that VCs pass on far more ideas than one may know about and often see right through the dog and pony show on tap.
Walking away from this conference, it is refreshing to have various core principles discussed. Know your business well, use any available network advantage for good, be social (not Facebook social, but real-life in-person social), and put forward passion and desire to innovate, or to steal a word from Jack Donaghy, you need to “Innovent” in ways that others can not.