Whether you call them co-founders, investors, or advisors, whoever is influencing the shape, trajectory, and value proposition of your startup should contribute to the messaging process itself; it’s just as crucial as filling out the brief.
This doesn’t mean every single person that you run across who has an opinion, but true relevant stakeholders that your startup’s success (or failure) impacts directly.
Such individuals may not be within your specific market, or they may actually be an ideal target user, but either way, they have knowledge and experience, and an opinion that can greatly contribute to figuring out the different types of messages you’re attempting to decipher and pinpoint.
You personally can have great knowledge of the market, of the investor’s landscape, of the industry as a whole, of all the players within the ecosystem, the buyers, and influencers, but your technical co-founder may be the only one who truly understands your ideal end-user.
That is priceless!
Having such discussions with relevant stakeholders during the process can only contribute to figuring out the day in the life of your prospect or user. It will only assist in figuring out their specific motivation and how you should be talking to them.
While having such conversations and brainstorming sessions aren’t always fun (they’re mostly difficult and sometimes painful), they are so helpful in figuring out common denominators, triggering new ideas and directions, while also helping to fine-tune your message to become focused and appropriate…across the board.
By the way, there could be cases of too many relevant stakeholders, and you may need to keep the intimate process down to cofounders only. For that, involve your surrounding stakeholders as relevant peers who may not decide on trajectory but do have a powerful opinion to assist.