Toroidal-Thinking as a way to get incremental buy-ins (or) HOW *NOT* TO "SELL AGAINST V1”.

I was chatting with a very good friend, brainstorming ideas and metaphors to express those ideas in a mnemonic visual/spatial form, that once internalized, can better guide our “negotiations” with those with vote/veto power, in particular, when we want to do a V2 of something that those same people in power have created themselves as the current status-quo, V1. 

Typical scenario: entrepreneurs starts a venture, hire über-competent technical people - like yourselves - who based upon their superior understanding, knowledge and experience, envision in their minds the “obvious” V2 path for whatever is the “core” or V1 of the current business. 

The temptation to make a differential analysis to present the tech case is high. 

The REAL question, is what: is the most USEFUL way to present the tech case to the entrepreneurs. Useful is defined as the capability to get "YES"/"I DO NOT OBJECT".

The most useful way, has nothing to do with how simple or direct the approach to the problem is, because, the “problem” is NOT the tech problem, in most cases, the problem is: you’re talking about the entrepreneurs’ precious V1 baby, and the entrepreneur/s becomes defensive about their creations… 

Please abandon all hope to immediately start making your PPT/deck/etc to present to the entrepreneurs.  You need to do some serious homework about what is the ultimate question… [for teleologists and fans of Asimov...]

We start by making our homework as preparation for the meeting: a simple three column, in which we do a traditional feature comparison between V1 (the entrepreneurs’ status quo) and our “vision” of what “obviously” V2 should look like. 

Please RESIST the temptation to go to the entrepreneur with this! You need to apply “Solution/Strategic Selling” (a.k.a. Pain-Sheets a.k.a. Miller Heiman) to this: for each of the “extra features” that V2 has and V1 lacks, you write as a BENEFIT, at least one - but possible more -extra line/s, expressed as the solution to the pain of the consequences of NOT having V2, regardless of V1!!! 

Example: If the V2 feature is “Extra Capacity to Cope with Faster Growth”, you re-write this as as extra line/s saying “Lost Business due to potential extra users being denied service”; “Reputational damage of system collapsing under load, being victim of own success”; “Bad PR associated to Growth-Pains due to unacceptable performance under load”; “Unhappy shareholders/investors/VCs and/or non-exec directors due to unfulfilled promises of capacity to cope with growth”, etc etc. 

You get the gist, you have to be VERY creative, to illustrate with examples, all the things that could go wrong for NOT HAVING V2, staying still technologically whilst growing the business.

At this stage you’re probably guessing correctly, that “the case” that you’re going to present to the decision makers, is NOT V1 “against” V2, with the expected emotional load of the decision makers “defending” the current system, their baby, what they were successful to build.

You HAVE to remove ALL references to V1 from the comparison list PERIOD.

The comparison you will present is between "V2" and "NOT DOING V2 NOW"

And here’s where the metaphorical imagery comes very useful: you are NOT selling a SPHERE against a BIGGER/Better/Brighter Sphere. You have to be VERY creative, you take all things in your list that V1 and V2 have, and you eliminate that from the list.

Then in your visual mind, you MOLD your perfect new bigger brighter SPHERE, into a TOROID/TORUS (for non geeks, a doughnut). 

A TOROID is A PERFECT REPRESENTATION IN YOUR MIND of your V2 solution, it’s still one infinite surface with no imperfections, just a centre where you can “fit” the smaller V1 Sphere. 

You are going to “sell” the idea/benefits of ADDING YOUR TOROIDAL V2 INCREMENTAL SOLUTION AROUND the current “also perfect V1” (at least in the mind of the current decision makers). 

If you prefer, you can use astronomy or even science fiction, to make vivid in the mind of the decision makers, that V1 idea and its implementation of functionality remains CORE into the new “space station”, with has ye-old-good core and your new doughnut around it…

AGAIN: You are NOT fighting V1, you’re presenting the case V2 versus NOT V2!

It might by then be a no-brainer, if you get a YES, say “Ok” and STOP TALKING.

You might also get "I DO NOT OBJECT", which is a permission to go ahead, but with less or no emotional commitment by the entrepreneurs. Evaluate carefully if this is enough...

You might also have to "continue selling": segment your solution in the different components, and sell ONE OR MORE of those components as MUST-HAVE, at which point the other components (segments of doughnut) become functional pre-requisites that you HAVE to implement in order to give structural support to the piece/s of doughnut that you managed to sell the idea for. 

If you’re visual like myself, you’re already guessing rightly the next metaphor, complete/fill the space between the V2 “doughnut” plus the V1 “core”, making a much better bigger new Sphere, which you will build as V3, not because you HAVE to sell again the whole idea, but because you by then you will have hopefully achieved the credibility to make on your own the technical decisions. 

Hopefully by then, you will have a track record of successful incremental deliveries, and most probably the original entrepreneurs will have also mutated their own roles, keeping more focus on the less technical aspects of the business... 

[Revised as of 19-Dec-2020]