The Is Have It

Five years back I had written about the POSITIVE framework for business storytelling. I had put together this framework as a guidance on aspects that entrepreneurs can cover while pitching their businesses. Recently I came across a book named ‘Pattern Breakers’ by Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman. The book speaks about the multiple crucial elements that lead to breakthrough startup outcomes. True to its name, the book made me think about how entrepreneurs can effectively comb some of these crucial pattern breakers in their otherwise POSITIVE-ly structured pitches and provide a better compass for stakeholders to connect. Let’s try to understand some of these with a few in-time examples:

Inflections

Inflections are essentially external shifts that create potential for radical change in how people think and behave. In other words, these are the market forces which are providing lead indicators of systemic changes that are underway.

• Recently I came across a correlation matrix which said that increase in female labor force participation rate will positively impact businesses in categories of food delivery, restaurants, women formal wear etc. Increase in women workforce participation is a positive secular trend in India, so can it be a positive inflection point for certain businesses!
• UPI has led to the proliferation of digital payments in India over the past 5 years. It is attributed to be one of the factors for the decline in candies/toffee business which are typically used as cash change/chutta in local kirana/paan stores. This is an example of a negative inflection trend for a certain type of business.
• If we start to think of it, there are many such inflections under play around us: Growth of the renewables industry in the recent years given India’s clean energy commitments under climate conventions, Increased opening of trading/demat accounts during the covid pandemic and ‘sahi hai’ marketing of mutual fund products leading to the current retail-money led bull run in the Indian capital markets, Inflection of GenAI compute making NVIDIA what it is today etc.

Thus, to be on the right side of such inflections and project them forward would certainly hold entrepreneurs in good stead in their venture building journeys.

Insights

Insights are the unique understanding of how to harness these inflections and enable a future that the entrepreneur believes in. This is also sometimes referred to as the ‘Right To Win’. What does the entrepreneur know that enables him/her to create the future he/she is envisaging.

• I recently met an entrepreneur building in the ReligionTech space in India. These platforms have been there in the market for multiple years but haven’t scaled. What has changed now? The founder spoke about the smartphone penetration in India (70%+) leading to the increased demand now, but he also had a unique insight on the behavior of the temples that he was working with. He said that these temples are reaching their max offline capacities and are now wanting to build a sustained online presence so as to build their followership across geographies, leading to supply tailwind. This insight of his was making him build targeted solutions and win promising business.
• Another startup founder had the unique insight of customers wanting quick 10 minutes deliveries years back, which we’ve seen becoming mainstream now. Generally outsized startup successes are based on non-consensus insights which turned out to be right. This is why investors seeking alpha returns ask the question, what is it that the founder knows that world doesn’t know which will eventually turn out to be true.

Thus, entrepreneurs with unique insights are not only able to justify capacity building ahead of time but also differentiate themselves in highly competitive markets, thus making attractive investable propositions.

As early-stage builders, if we can internalize these pattern breakers of Inflections and Insights in our pitches to stakeholders, it should positively help us close that large sales contract, onboard that promising talent resource or bag that elusive funding, thus creating those outsized outcomes that we have been working towards.

P.S. It’s been a hard day today for Coldplay concert ticket seekers in Mumbai. If I had to offer one insight from one of their songs itself, it would be this :)

“When she was just a girl, she expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
So she ran away in her sleep and dreamed of
Para-para-paradise, para-para-paradise, para-para-paradise
Every time she closed her eyes”