The one pager is your company’s calling card, a written pitch of your startup. Therefore, it must describe your product, your offering, your team and what make you special — so that investors, clients and partners would get interested. These are all important points, not easily delivered in just a few lines of text — so how do you do it?
Positioning statement. This is the part in which you introduce your company: describe in a sentence or two what do you do and where’s your edge, your unique value. How do you do it? Begin with the end result — your customer or user.
“For (your user, consumer, customer) Who (has a specific need you identified), (your product, service or technology) is a (product/service category) that (give value). Unlike (relevant competitors), (your offering) has (your advantage)”.
Your positioning statement must be realistic, believable and accurate. It must differentiate you from other market players, imply growth possibilities and not easy to reproduce by competitors. It must be easy to read and understand, without technical terms (you’ll dive into the technical issue in the product segment)
Take an example from Amazon’s 2001 positioning statement: “For World Wide Web users who enjoy books, Amazon.com is a retail bookseller that provides instant access to over 1.1 million books. Unlike traditional book retailers, Amazon.com provides a combination of extraordinary convenience, low prices and comprehensive selection”.
Product summary. This part will outline your product or service, by focusing on its core offering. You begin with elaborating on your positioning statement — show why the product is needed, which user gain which value from it and which problems it will solve.
Milestones. This section could be designed as a timeline, presenting the company’s main accomplishments and achievements (when did you started, what goals did you achieve by now etc.) — and future plans. The reader must understand your next objectives: user growth markers, employees, brand recognition, increased revenues, special features and more.
Funding goals. Take notice that funding goals are not milestones, but enablers and could be presented in a separate graph. The readers expect you to address funding plans, to see if investment is relevant and how high do you aim. Write how much do you want to raise and to which milestone is the funding connected — product development, sales expansion, market reach and more. Your funding goals should reflect company efficiency, to show you can reach your objective with a lean model.
Data presentation. The one pager should have a good balance between text and infographics/illustrations. The latter could message complex issues clearly better than text; for example — market breakdown, company ecosystem and value chain, revenue channels and more.
Beta testing. Show your one pager to friends within your relevant ecosystem to get their response (choose carefully and don’t forget NDAs) and also ask people from different business vectors; their feedback is valuable, so that you’ll know if your content and messaging are clear and to the point.
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