Recently, I read the book, Backable by Suneel Gupta. One of my goals in 2022 is to read at least 25 books (1 every 2 weeks) and I wanted to make sure I took the first step. So here I was.
Backable is about the traits of people who are `Backable`. Suneel has an interesting story to set the book up. He talks about the inflection point in his career when he was on the front page of the New York times as the face of failure. He used it to start conversations with successful people understand their secrets. This book is a synthesis of all those interviews. I found the book to be an easy read – I completed cover to cover in 3-4 hours while taking notes. To me, it was a great refresher of things that I need to do to be more `backable` in everyday life.
I am sharing my notes below. Please keep in mind that it only gives you a glimpse into what this book is about. I recommend going through the book yourself if you find the summary interesting:
Chapter 1: Convince yourself first:
What moves people isn’t charisma, but conviction. Backable people believe in what they’re saying. And they let that belief shine through whatever style feels most natural.
- Schedule incubation time for your idea, don’t share it prematurely. Have an end date for your incubation time.
- Steer into Objections: Lets take venture financing as an example. There will be a few issues that will be potentially problematic for your financing- says Reid Hoffman, VC at Greylock. “Address them head-on. “You have the most attention from investors in the first few minutes,” he says. Most investors arrive with questions before a pitch. If you can show that you understand their concerns, you earn their attention for the rest of the pitch.
- Use Narratives: While bullets share what you believe, fully formed paragraphs force you to explain why.
- Throwaway Work: A big part of convincing yourself is accepting that throwaway work is a natural part of the process. “Do the work before you share with the outside world. You need to be the most passionate advocate. You should inspire yourself before you inspire anyone else.” In other words, be willing to do the work necessary to convince yourself first.
- Measure your emotional Runway: You need to be invested in your idea. When considering a concept, don’t only consider the fit with the market but also whether it fits you
Chapter 2: Cast a central Character: Tell Stories
- Choose One Person: Great storytellers don’t just focus on a central character, but also a central reader. Instead of addressing millions of people, they’ll imagine they’re sharing the story with one specific person. Writing with a specific person in mind made the storytelling sharper and more compelling.
- Create s Storyboard: Don’t just give a quick description of their customer; visually walk you through the customer’s experience. This technique is called storyboarding. Storyboarding has a way of creating empathy between your backer and the person you want to serve. Once you’ve established that empathy, you can talk numbers in a much more powerful way.
- Keep your characters in Sight: Once you have chosen that one person, keep them in sight all the time and you will keep everyone inspired.
Chapter 3: Find an earned secret
“Give me something that isn’t googleable. I want an idea that is based on surprising insight. Not something I could find through a Google search.”
- Go Beyond Google: Examples:- Suneel hired folks on user testing.com to check out the website flow before an interview. – James Cameron pitched the titanic idea and in the first half of the meeting, they simply talked about how it sank. Go beyond regular. A movie producer says – “Give me something that isn’t googleable. I want an idea that is based on surprising insight. Not something I could find through a Google search.”
- Intoxicate Them with Effort: Make sure your pitch demonstrates your effort. An idea that stems from hands-on experience is way more backable than the same exact idea if it simply originated sitting behind a desk. But the catch is, without being boastful, you have to make that effort shine through your pitch. It can’t be hidden.
Chapter 4: Make it feel Inevitable
- Be an Armchair Anthropologist. What is the shift in the world that is making your idea matter?
- With or Without us: Make them have FOMO
- Show Momentum:
- Have Vision, not Visions: Skate to where the puck is going to be. Don’t go astray with multiple visions.
Chapter 5: Flip Outsiders to Insiders
- Share what it could be, not exactly how it has to be. While it’s important to have thought through all the details, you don’t need to share them all in advance. Instead share the high-level theme of what the idea could be, then pause and bring your backers into the discussion.
- The story of us: Show how backers fit into the plan. Backable people taught me that there are three steps to showing backers they are a pivotal part of your plan.
- First, identify a gap in your idea that relates directly to strength in your backer. A gap could be anything from needing to figure out the right marketing strategy to hiring the right people.
- Second, learn as much as possible before your meeting. Although you will be highlighting a gap, you still want to be able to engage your backer with the right questions and discussion. This takes preparation. In fact, I’ve learned it takes more preparation to create a discussion than to create a presentation.
- Finally, when you meet with your backer, be sure to directly express the “story of us.” Explain how your gap and their strength fit together to unlock your idea. Don’t assume that they’ll connect the dots. Even if they do, it’s worth them knowing that you understand why you two fit well together.
- Make them the Hero: To feel like heroes, we need to know that what we said and what we did made an impact. If you have received a feedback, work on them and get back to them after incorporating their feedback.
- Share just Enough: When pitching a new concept, your idea “can’t be 100 percent defined. Share just enough to spark their imagination, but not so much that you give them a reason to say no.
Chapter 6: Play Exhibition Matches
Practice, practice, and practice
- No venue is too small: For backable people, no venue is too small for exhibition matches. The only requirement is the ability to practice in front of someone other than yourself.
- Be Willing to be Embarassed: It’s easy to assume that compelling communicators are naturals. But more often than not, they’re the product of deliberate practice and personal reinvention. To get to where they are, they played lots of exhibition matches.
- Don’t Ask, “what do you think”? Rather ask questions that are specific and can dig beneath surface level feedback.
- Build your Backable Circle: There are four specific types of people:
- Collaborators: Won’t agree to everything but the feedback will feel productive
- Coach: Will help you understand if an idea is right for you.
- Cheerleader: This is self-explanatory
- Cheddar: the person who will poke hole in your ideas. Your critic.
- The rule of 21: Practice 21 times. Backers will rarely sit quietly through an entire pitch, unless they’re bored. They cut in with questions, ask you to go back, ask you to jump ahead. None of this is bad, because it means your backer is actually engaged. If you can glide through the choppiness i.e. jump from point 3 to point 9 and then transition smoothly back to 4 – those are the moments when your confidence shines through.
- Reboot Your style: Barack Obama reinvented his style and ran for president. He was called `professorial` and `stale` before he rebooted his style. Instead of throwing away your dream, reinvent your style.
Chapter 7: Let go of your Ego
After many years of struggling to become backable, I came to realize that the gun inside my backpack was my ego. That my extreme desire to impress people in the room had created distance, not connection. No matter how professional or friendly I acted, people could always tell when I wasn’t at ease.
- Show not tell: People are more confident when they are in `Huddle Mode” and showing their idea rather than describing it.
- Forget yourself: We tend to speak more confidently when we’re representing someone else. You could be the agent of your customer rather than some VP of Marketing. We tend to be more passionate when we’re advocating for someone or something other than ourselves.
- Find the passionate few: Not everyone has to like your idea. All you need is a few backers (users, investors, exec sponsors) who love it.