Your Startup’s Weight Watchers Potential
Your startup’s early growth hinges on how obvious your first customer’s success is. Blindingly obvious success for those customers is the only way you’ll grow.
My old boss back in the venture days was obsessed with Weight Watchers. Specifically, with the Before and After picture. He used to say it was one of the most valuable commodities ever created.
He had a custom “investment scorecard” he’d fill out after every startup pitch we heard with a bunch of criteria that looked like gobbledygook to everyone who didn’t work for him and the fundamentals of a company with potential to grow to everyone who did. First on that list was “Weight Watchers Potential.”
Weight Watchers Potential had a few components:
Is there a “Before and After” Picture? Was it blindingly, overwhelmingly obvious to your customer that your product worked? Was it impossible for them to avoid comparing their old self to their new self? Is it satisfying for them to do it?
Do customers need to share that picture? Will customers be compelled to tell their friends that your product worked? Will they gain status, somehow, by showing their friends?
Do potential customers see your customers' success and ask them about it? Weight Watchers testimonials are filled with quotes like "all my friends ask me how I lost all this weight." Does the business have that type of natural, success-driven growth?
Is there clear pain from the Before Picture? Are customers faced with their “before” picture daily, and does it create enough pain to motivate them to change?
It might seem like this is just for B2C companies, but it’s more important for B2B companies to focus on it because of the complexities of B2B Before and After pictures.
Let’s say you’re creating a loyalty program for coffee shops. It’s an AI tool that’ll predict which promotions will drive repeat visits with specific customers. So, for one customer a free muffin might be compelling enough to get them in the store, while $1 off an iced latte might be more effective for another.
Great.
What’s the Before and After for the coffee shop?
Is the before state a revenue number they’re aware of and track? Is it a purchases per customer number? Is it profit? Is it inventory?
And, once customers come back and redeem that coupon… is that tracked? Will they attribute the increases in business to your product? Or, did they also have a new pumpkin spice latte, and they think that drove the behavior?
Is that success obvious? Will other coffee shops notice the repeat customers and ask about it?
I actually kind of like building a startup from that Before and After moment. Reverse engineering a business from an impactful success moment that’s clear and obvious and shareable and jealousy-inducing.
So, what’s yours?
