Blockchain Ireland, Free Founder University and Value Propositions

I unexpectedly had one of the most incredible weeks because of Blockchain Ireland.

Honestly, with free events, my expectations are low.

But I’m still recovering from the three days of afterparties.

I was expecting three days of being marketed, but I was pleasantly surprised with the depth of conversation and some of the great builders in the Web 3 space that attended.

The week’s highlight was the startup pitches and seeing some of the remarkable things being worked on locally.

The companies that stood out to me were Unbanx, Algovera, Coum and (because I’m a collector and Whiskey drinker) Ulysses Whiskey.

I help startups create kickass value propositions that sell their business by speaking clearly and directly to their target market.

You know what you’re going to get out of this handy little blog, but you’ve already seen a great value proposition. That’s because the above sentence IS a value proposition. And now, we’re going to build you the one — together.

First, let’s back it up a little.

What even is a value proposition?

A value proposition is literally what it sounds like: it’s a statement about your business’s value — what is the value of your product? What’s your unique proposition? The value proposition clarifies what your customers will get from your goods or services.

Don’t forget, though you may know your product’s value down to your very core, you also need a way to communicate that passion and understanding to everyone else.

Forget buzzwords or coming up with a catchy slogan — this is about making your product’s value easy to understand as it is compelling.

This value proposition can help shape the entirety of your marketing and, ultimately, your business, as it lays the foundation for exactly why someone should be excited about and want to spend their money with your company.

The sooner you establish it, the smoother everything else after it will be.

So, let’s get it right together.

To get an idea of the perfect value proposition, let’s look at a little tech company that has become one of the world’s most prominent in the past two years: Zoom. The video conferencing app successfully communicated its value proposition to more than 300 million daily users to become the fifth most downloaded mobile app worldwide in 2020.

They became the world’s number one choice for video calls above its competitors when our need for features skyrocketed due to the pandemic.

And this is all very recent growth; Zoom had 10 million daily meeting participants back in December of 2019.

Zoom’s value proposition is: “#1 Video conferencing and web conferencing service.”

This excellent value proposition gets straight to the point of what the service offers the customer, but it comes with added social proof as to why you should choose it over its competitors.

Here’s how to create an excellent value proposition yourself.

First, define your target market. The more laser-focused you are on who you want to speak to with your product, the better you’ll be able to target them with your value proposition, and the more effective it will be.

It’s the secret formula of Steve Blank, a former Google employee who now runs the Lean Startup Circle. And it’s not so secret because he’s made it world-famous. I like having a formula because it takes a lot of the guesswork away.

Blank’s method involves taking your startup’s features and distilling them into a simple sentence:

You can create your own clear, concise value proposition with this template. Not overthinking it is crucial — its simplicity makes this method so great. The first thing you think of may be the best value proposition statement you can make.

This is also where knowing your target audience comes in. Not only do you want to keep to the point here, but you should speak as your customer does. How would they describe the problem they want to solve? Speak their language — literally and figuratively — and you’ll get across the exact message you want to and cut through the noise of your competitors while you do it.

Ready to write your startup’s value proposition?

Use this simple formula and send it to me if you want a little review. 😉

Notion is one of my favourite tools and with Super you can build websites from your Notion pages.

Thanks to the lovely Rick Nassar for introducing me to this one. ❤️

If you are in Dublin on Thursday, come and say hello to me and some lovely people from LearnUpon and OfferZen.

A few places left here!

You don’t have to be a developer to join. Just have a general interest in tech. ❤️

That’s all for this week, have a great week ahead, and I’ll chat with you next week! 👋

If you want to say hello or get in touch, you can always reply to this email. 💌