Six Words
By: Venky Harinarayan
Two months ago, we were at Accel’s CEO summit. It was a fun event with great speakers -- opened with Steve Ballmer and ended with Eric Schmidt!
Also on the agenda: each start-up CEO doing a 30 second elevator-pitch on their company, on the spot. Ambushed thus, Anand and I drew straws – I lost, and had 5 minutes to prepare.
While preparing, I thought of an NPR program, where they discussed describing your life in six words: “Cursed with cancer, blessed by friends”, and “No wife. No kids. No problems”. Hemingway was once challenged to do a story in 6 words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”. That was the origin of the Six Words. Smith Magazine (http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/) recently revived interest in this format. They sought out and published a collection of 6 word memoirs titled “Not Quite What I Was Planning”. It is catching on: the New York Times had articles in the last couple weeks, where healthy eating is: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. And good investing is: “Index (mostly). Save a ton. Reallocate infrequently”. Seven words, but it is the Times after all.
Why is a thirty-second elevator-pitch interesting? Economy with time forces clarity and focus. You have to pick what’s most important. Economy with words has the same effect. But 6 words? Well, if people can describe their lives with 6 words, surely we can describe a company in 6 words. So let’s do Kosmix in 6. I’ll cheat a little here, since we’re a media company – I’ll use 3 words for the consumer and 3 words for the advertiser. Here it is (I’m sure your six will be different J). Ta-dah!
Kosmix: “Organize the Web. Targeting AND Reach”.
Back to the Accel event, I chickened out and did the traditional 30 second pitch. “I should have gone with six!”
