EVERY SPOKEN WORD
125 min read · 24,987 words- 0:00 – 8:03
Andy’s background
- ARAndy Raskin
... the way I learned how to pitch in business school, and I think the way most people did is, is what I call the arrogant doctor. So, you have a problem, a pain, I have a solution, you know, a treatment, and I'm gonna tell you why it's better than all the other treatments. And the structure that I read about in th- these movies was different. Every movie starts with some kind of shift in the world, and I call this shift the shift from old game to new game. And the archetypal example of this, I think, in the business world is what Benioff did with Salesforce. So he comes in and he says, "Hey, software is over. And there's this new world called the cloud, a, a new game, new rules, uh, you know, that's the new way to win, and we're gonna help you if you're, you're in there." Th- This s- structure really is about defining a movement, and that's very different from, "Hey, I'm gonna solve your problem."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(instrumental music) Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts, learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today my guest is Andy Raskin. Andy helps CEOs and company leaders align their teams around something he calls a strategic narrative, which, as you'll learn all about in this episode, is essentially a simple story that helps people understand why they need your product, and with that helps you align your sales, marketing, and product teams, along with your fundraising and even your hiring efforts. Andy has worked closely with some of the most successful founders and companies out there, including companies like Gong, Dropbox, Uber Salesforce, Square, IBM, and many others. In our conversation, Andy explains why most people are pitching their product completely wrong, why focusing on the problem you're solving for people is no longer an effective pitch, and how the strategic narrative helps you frame your solution in a much more effective way. Andy also shares a ton of examples of the framework in action, why focusing on categories and category creation is so limiting, signs your narrative needs work, and so much more. Enjoy this episode with Andy Raskin after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Coda. You've heard me talk about how Coda is the doc that brings it all together, and how it can help your team run smoother and be more efficient. I know this firsthand, because Coda does that for me. I use Coda every day to wrangle my newsletter content calendar, my interview notes for podcasts, and to coordinate my sponsors. More recently, I actually wrote a whole post on how Coda's product team operates, and within that post, they shared a dozen templates that they use internally to run their product team, including managing the roadmap, their OKR process, getting internal feedback, and essentially their whole product development process is done within Coda. If your team's work is spread out across different documents and spreadsheets and a stack of workflow tools, that's why you need Coda. Coda puts data in one centralized location, regardless of format, eliminating roadblocks that can slow your team down. Coda allows your team to operate on the same information and collaborate in one place. Take advantage of this special limited time offer just for startups. Sign up today at coda.io/lenny and get $1,000 starter credit on your first statement. That's C-O-D-A dot I-O slash Lenny to sign up, and get a startup credit of $1,000. Coda.io/lenny. Are you hiring? Or, on the flip side, are you looking for a new opportunity? Well, either way, check out lennysjobs.com/talent. If you're a hiring manager, you can sign up and get access to hundreds of hand-curated people who are open to new opportunities. Thousands of people apply to join this collective, and I personally review and accept just about 10% of them. You won't find a better place to hire product managers and growth leaders. Join almost 100 other companies who are actively hiring through this collective. And if you're looking around for a new opportunity, actively or passively, join the collective. It's free, you can be anonymous, and you can even hide yourself from specific companies. You can also leave any time, and you'll only hear from companies that you want to hear from. Check out lennysjobs.com/talent. Andy, welcome to the podcast.
- ARAndy Raskin
Oh, thanks, Lenny. So great to talk with you.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So you're quite known as someone that helps CEOs optimize their pitch, their story, their strategy, which we're gonna get deep into. But before we do that, can you just give us a little glimpse into how you found your way into this line of work?
- ARAndy Raskin
So I started as a coder. I was a computer science major, undergrad. A friend and I had an idea for an app. So this was, like, during the dot-com years, so it was Windows app. And we coded a little prototype, and we started... We, we put it out there, we started getting some users, and we thought, "Oh, okay, maybe we can get some investment." So of the two of us, I spoke English fluently, so we decided, "Okay, I'll write the investor pitch." So I wrote the pitch, sent it out, and the reaction was really bad. And one VC wrote back and said, "Listen, I rate every plan I get on a scale of one to ten, and yours is a one." And (laughs) next to the one he wrote, uh, in parentheses, "Worst," in case we thought, like, maybe that was the top of his, uh, rating scale.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Brutal.
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs) Uh, yeah. Brutal. And, uh, but then lower down... So this was back when they would, like, you'd print, send the hard copy of the plan, and they might mail it back with comments written in. And he had written in, "Not a compelling story." And a few weeks later, I'm walking by this Barnes & Noble, and there's a sign in the window, and it says, "For anyone who wants to tell a compelling story." Okay, that's me. And then there's an arrow that's pointing to these books, and they turn out to be screenwriting books. And I didn't know anything about this, so I, I started reading these books. And it strikes me, like, a movie is a pitch. Like, you know, what is Star Wars a pitch for? It's a pitch for, you know, be good, like, care about people, trust the Force, you know, in, in their terms.... but I don't have couple of hours, you know, I'm pitching a business. It's very different, you know?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
I'm not writing a three-act screenplay, so, like, what applies, what doesn't apply? I mean, these are questions I, I think I'm still asking. Uh, but I did my best to kind of take some of the learnings of, of how the movie was structured, which is very different from how my pitch was structured, and kind of restructure it, and we did that, and we sent the pitch out, and we start getting more interest. Like, it's really clear, and then we, we had a term sheet, I think, a few months later, and I'm like, "What is this story thing that..." But we, uh, we didn't change the product. Uh, it was basically the same i- business, just sort of how we talked about it. That was really interesting to me, and, I mean, o- over the next, like, 10, 15 years, I, I, I thought about, like, "P", maybe I could do consulting with this, like, CEOs who heard about this would, like, ask me about it. But I still was like, "No, no CEO's gonna, like, budget a, a line item for the story." (laughs) You know? Like, that's not a thing. So, I just didn't do it for a really long time, until, eventually, I was proven wrong about that.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And how many years ago was this at this point?
- ARAndy Raskin
So this was dotco- this was, like, '98 when I was pitching that company.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. I think there's a couple interesting tidbits about this. One is that interesting opportunities arise when you're just doing something you're excited about. So you had the startup, it didn't work out, but, like, you've, you had a problem that you solved for yourself and that led to s- another, a bigger opportunity for your career down the road.
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah, to- totally. Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So that's interesting, and then also just some of the best opportunities arise from solving your own problem, not having, not planning to start something with it, but just like, "I have a problem. Turns out I let other people-"
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah, I think that's same with you, right, Lane? Like, you started writing about stuff-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Absolutely.
- ARAndy Raskin
... and, like, boom. Like, that became the thing.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Absolutely. It was not quite boom, but, uh, eventually-
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... eventually, it became boom.
- ARAndy Raskin
Feels like boom from outside.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's, yeah. That's, eh, that's how it goes. It always feels, it always feels, uh, uh, overnight-
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... for everyone else that isn't here. (laughs)
- ARAndy Raskin
Right, exactly.
- 8:03 – 10:34
What is a strategic narrative?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. Okay, so, so let's get into it. So you help CEOs, at this point, come up with what you call a strategic narrative, and you help them not only come up with this s- strategic narrative, but you help their teams align around this strategic narrative. So let's just start with, what is a strategic narrative?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah, you'd think, like, I've been doing this for, like, 10 years, I'd have a very snappy definition of it. Uh-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... there, and, and the, I don't know if I'm really happy with, like, I've never found one that totally gets at it yet. The o- one thing I say is, like, it's this one story that the CEO uses to drive success in, in marketing, sales, but also product, that it, that it becomes like a north star, strategic north star for, for product roadmap, for fundraising, for, uh, recruiting, really everything. And what I think is really interesting as a kind of qualifier is that this story has a certain structure, kinda like I said, like, eh, when I found those screenwriting books, I, I sort of shifted the structure. And the traditional structure, um, the way I learned how to pitch in business school, and I think the way most people did is, is what I call the arrogant doctor. So, you have a problem, a pain. I have a solution, you know, a treatment, and I'm gonna tell you why it's better than all the other treatments. N- not, not to say it's not better, uh, but just, this is the structure of it, and it kinda sets you up for, for bragging, like, or, or (laughs) here, let me tell you why it's so great. And the structure that I read about in these, these movies was, was different. Um, the, in the movies, every movie starts with some kind of sh- shift in the world, in the, in the, in the character's world, right? And I call this shift the s- the shift from old game to new game, and the archetypal example of this, I think, in the business world is what Benioff did with Salesforce. So he comes in, and he says, "Hey, software is over." (laughs) Like, uh, meaning software in the sense that we're gonna own it and, and maintain it, and, uh, and there's this new world called the cloud. Uh, a new game, like there are new, new, new rules. Everything has changed, and we're gon- you know, that's the new way to win, and we're gonna help you if you're, you're in there. Th- this s- structure really is about defining a movement, and, and that's very different from, "Hey, I'm gonna solve your problem."
- 10:34 – 12:02
How Salesforce would have pitched the old way
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think the Salesforce example is an awesome example of your approach. If they were thinking about it in the old way, what would Salesforce have done? How would they have pitched it if not for, "Everyone's moving to the cloud. You're dumb if you're using desktop software"?
- ARAndy Raskin
Well, I think they would've just come out and said, like, "Oh, you know, hey..." But I mean, CRM, by the way, was already a category. I mean, they were already, you know, Siebel was the huge giant of that space. Uh, there were already even companies doing it online, you know, doing it through the web. And so they would've come and said, "Oh, you know, we're easier to install than, you know, faster to get up and running than Siebel," or, "We have this much functionality compared to..." W- what I think it was, was it NetSuite or, I don't know. So, so it was some early, uh, early Salesforce-like thing that was out there. They would've done these sort of comparison things, and, and, you know, Benioff, I mean, he's, he is a pretty proud guy. I think he did still say like, "Hey, we're the number one CRM."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
But that wasn't what they led with. They, they led with this, this story about this fundamental paradigm shift, and, you know, are you in or are you not in? And what they did was instead of just saying, like, "Hey, we're better than S-" They, they said, "Hey, all those others, those, those Siebels and all, they're part of that old game. They're, you wanna play that software game? Be my guest. Go, go buy Siebel." And, you know, of course, we know how it played out.
- 12:02 – 15:23
Examples of a strategic narrative in action
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So the crux of the, uh, approach is instead of problem, solution, you should go do this, it's, "The world is changing."... "Here's where it's going and we're gonna help you get there." Uh, and I wanna go in a little more depth of the framework. But before that, what are some other examples to give people a sense of like, "Oh, I see. I understand what this might be"?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. So another great example, and no coincidence, so, i- is Zuora. Uh, so Zuora's the company I wrote about in this, this post called The Greatest Sales Like I've Ever Seen. The CEO of Zuora, Tien Tzuo, was, um, employee number 11 at Salesforce, so he learns this from Benioff. And he's pitching, you know, hey, in the old world, businesses operated on transactions. You sold things to people outright. In this new world, he calls it the subscription economy, where we... people want the benefits of those things without necessarily having to pay for them, and, of course, gives all these examples of all the winners, you know, in this... Uh, look at all the, the winning companies. They're all basically going to this new model. And, you know, and, and so he's pitching someone like Ford. And you can imagine, they're going to Ford and pitching, you know, a subscription for car service, I mean, which is quite different from just a lease, and they're starting out with this. You know, this is the big shift. Another one, um, team I worked with early on, a- and I think, I think they'd agree, like, their story came out of this work, was Gong. Uh, so Gong, you know, e- everyone probably knows by now, like, they, they, you know, they, they take the video recordings of all your sales calls and they stick AI onto it and come out with all these insights. And that story is, you know, "Hey, goodbye opinions..." (laughs) It used to be a world where we, we... sales is run on opinions, "Hello, reality," that now, all the winners are gonna, uh, are, are, are adopting this new mindset where we really have to s- see what's really going on.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
In the Gong example, let's say, what would they have done if, if they were going like, "Here's the problem. Here's the solution. Here's what we're gonna do for you"?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what they were doing when they started out. And, and I'm not saying, like, that that didn't work totally. I mean, already by the time they started doing this, like, they, they were starting to become a big company. I remember Amit Bendov said to me, "Listen, Andy, you know..." They were around, like, series B. I think this was around 2018. He's like, "We're gonna be a huge company. The question is, how huge?" And, you know, I think that this narrative, like, along the lines of, like, a Zuora or Salesforce, if we get this right, this is gonna be a multiplier on our growth. So, you know, I, I don't remember exactly the pitch beforehand, but it was very much like, "Hey, we're gonna record your calls. Uh, we're gonna get insights from them. They're better than the insights you could get salesfor- from Salesforce." There wasn't this kind of unifying kind of movement ideology that put it all in context, and what was really interesting was... One thing I, I, I don't think they'd be upset if I shared, and maybe it's known, like, you know, initially, they were seen as a tool for, like, sales operations, you know, for someone who's gonna record the calls.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And what this narrative did for them, and I think it was already starting to happen, but what it really, uh, coalesced was, "This is a tool for sales leadership."
- 15:23 – 16:40
How one piece of writing skyrocketed Andy’s career
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You talked about Zuora and the post you wrote, and I imagine many people listening are like, "Oh, shit, this is the guy that wrote that post that everyone's always sharing with me-"
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"... about how to make a deck." And I wanted to ask, how impactful was that one piece of writing for you in your career, just, like, as a tangent?
- ARAndy Raskin
I had written some other posts on Medium, but in particular... Medium, uh, Medium cha- has changed quite a bit. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAndy Raskin
But back then, I found that I could write stuff there and get really, like... A, a lot of people who are interested in what I was interested would, would sort of come in and, and, uh, and create some noise about it. So I was already doing this kind of work for a couple of years, but that post immediately got something like two million views around the world-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... and I started getting, uh, inquiries from teams all over the world. And it was, I think, what really allowed me to say, "No, okay, I could do this work," that, that CEOs would budget a line item for this, because I think, if you really understand that post, it's not really about a sales deck. It's really about this story that Tien and the, you know, the CEO is telling everywhere and that, you know, is showing up in the sales deck and, and structuring it that way.
- 16:40 – 17:53
The power of writing online
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think this is just another example that comes up a bunch in this podcast, just the power of writing and the power of content, and there's... Yeah, you're shaking your head. Yeah.
- ARAndy Raskin
Totally. I mean, I had a, I had a little mini career as a journalist, as a freelance writer.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And I, I really loved that. I actually... I took a class in New York called How to Write a Magazine Article.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs) And, so, I was alread- you know, I was still in mid-career. I was sort of curious, and the class wound up being more about, like, how to sell a magazine article, and I found I really love that, like pitching articles and, you know... But one thing that was always a downer for me was, like, there's always this editor, you know, sort of, like, deciding what, what I'm... what's gonna be out there and... Um, you know, when you work with a great editor, it's great. Like, they make your stuff better and, and y- y- you... The- they're priceless. But still, there's this intermediary and, and what started to happen, I think, around when I started writing around 2013, '14, you start to see these platforms like Medium, um, even LinkedIn, where you can just write and have this audience. And I think no way I could do this, what, the work I do, if that development hadn't happened first.
- 17:53 – 19:27
Two paths to writing online
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I'm taking us off track, but I wanna (laughs) go a little deeper with this.
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I find that there's kind of two paths to writing online. One is li- is your path, where you write one piece that just, like, blows up like crazy. The other path is more my path, where I just write consistently for a long time.
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And both work. And most people try to go your path and they never succeed. It's really hard to make something get two million views, but you can go that path.
- ARAndy Raskin
You know, this is like you said earlier, like, "Hey, it seems like boom, but really it di-"
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
So, I had re- that was, that was probably the...... 30th or 40th piece.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
You know, and they were gradually getting more and more traction. There was one I wrote before that about... It was kind of dissecting Elon Musk's pitch for the Powerwall, the battery-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... that they sell, and that one got maybe, like, a few 100,000 views, and also was a big jump. And, and then, you know, the next one got, you know, (laughs) some paltry number of... So there, there was a... Uh, it, what I find is, like, yeah, there's this, there's this, a while where you're writing and feels like you're talking to nobody, and then, sort of gradually it grows, and, and you'll have these peaks and then da- but then, you know, over time is, is, is where the magic is.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay, I'm really glad you pointed that out, that it rarely is just you write one thing and it's boom.
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Great.
- ARAndy Raskin
I'll, I'll also say, sorry, because I worked in a magazine-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... I haven't done a newsletter because that idea of, like, having a deadline all the time, and, like, constantly having to... We, we used to call it in the magazine, "Feed the beast." Like, I feel so f- free not to have that. (laughs) So for now, uh, at least I haven't done that.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I know that
- 19:27 – 20:59
Naming the old game
- LRLenny Rachitsky
well. So let me take us back on track and-
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... let's talk about just the high level framework here. So you talked about the... It starts with this idea of tell people world is changing, join this movement. What's, like, the simple way to think about this, the pieces of this, uh, strategic narrative framework?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. A lot of times people will contact me and say, "Hey, I tried it, didn't work."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And well, one, one very (laughs) common thing, at least earlier, was they would basically just take the Zuora deck, they'd get ahold of it and just, like, put their logo on it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And so, you know, that, that, "That's not gonna work." One thing is, you know, we're not just saying, "Hey, the world is changing." And it is... Sometimes I'll see, "The world is changing," and then it'll be, "Used to be," and there's a long list of things, and then, "Now it is," and a long list of bullet points, right? What's really, I think, key is naming it, like naming that old game. You... The examples you saw, software, cloud, transactions, uh, subscription, opinions, reality. This very, very concise naming, um, is really key, and it's hard because in making it compact you're losing completeness. So, you know, you can imagine you're in a meeting someone says, like, "Hey, how about we do transactions to subscriptions?" And someone says, "Well, I don't know. There's a lot of things I don't really subscribe to. Subscription economy, really?" So we're always kind of overstating it in a way, but it's not a problem. Like, you don't... I don't think people say like, "Oh, you know, that's wrong, subscription economy, 'cause I, I still go to the grocery store and buy things," right? So anyway that, that, that's the first piece.
- 20:59 – 23:29
Naming the stakes
- ARAndy Raskin
The second piece is what I call, uh, naming the stakes. And there's a few ways to do this, but one that's really great if we can do it is, is to name the winners, to show that winners are already playing this new game. So for instance, with, uh, Zuora they're saying, "Hey, look, uh, look at all the, the, the new winners." Like, this is like 2015, so like, Airbnb, Box, you know, all, all these company, they're, they're already doing this subscription thing. And by the way, overall, like they show this scary stat about the, like the, the longevity of Fortune 500 companies. It's getting smaller.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And so it's a little disingenuous, but basically they make this case that, "Hey, companies are dying. The ones that are winning are, are doing this," right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And so to the extent we can we wanna, we wanna make this life and death, just like a movie, right? And this is again, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll make the ref- the parallel to Star Wars. So Luke, he spends like the first 15 minutes of the movie bellyaching, like, he wants to be a pilot, he wants to go out and have adventures in space. So Obi-Wan comes, he says, "Hey, we got this mission, this princess, we gotta res- and all this stuff. Let's go out and let's go. I'll teach you to be a pilot. We'll go have adventures in space." What does Luke say? He says, "Ooh, you know what? I can't really get involved. I gotta go home. It's late." Who does this sound like? The reluctant buyer, you know? So yeah-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... I wanna be innovative and all this... Ooh, you know what? I don't have budget this quarter." So, so how does, how does George Lucas change Luke's mind? He basically kills the aunt and uncle. Sorry, spoilers. Um, it's been 40 years though-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAndy Raskin
... but if you haven't seen it, it's prob- you're probably not gonna see it. Kills the aunt and uncle. Now it's, it's pretty clear they're coming for Luke. The, now the stakes are life and death. Probably he's gonna be dead, but there is this other path that Obi-Wan holds out for him. And, you know, whenever I work with teams and I talk about this, so they're like, "Okay, I guess we gotta then for kill the prospect's aunt and uncle." And basically yes. I mean, like, figuratively.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
We gotta show them that the future is not gonna just be sort of okay. That there are... I- it's prob- people talk about like making it emotional, and I've always wondered, like, what does that mean? Like literally what is the definition? And this is for me the definition is that the prospect doesn't see the future as sort of okay. They see it as split between a very negative outcome and a potentially very positive outcome.
- 23:29 – 25:17
Naming the objective
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
The third piece is what I call, um, naming the object of the new game. I used to call it the promised land message, but I've, I've changed it to this 'cause I, I think it's, it's... I've found that it, it's sort of a little more fruitful. You know, this subscription economy transactions, it can get a little highfalutin' and, and sort of, like, big, right? So, you know, but like on the website (laughs) when we just have to boil it down to a couple of words that's gonna be clear, like, right away, what can we say? And I find that, you know, what's the object of the new game really boils it down as kind of the rallying cry of the movement. So the example with Zuora, the object for a while was turn customers into subscribers. Very simple, you know, just sort of flows from it. Airbnb for a while had this one, uh, live anywhere. You know, if you think about, you know, so-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Belong- belong anywhere.
- ARAndy Raskin
Well, well actually it was-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, live like a human.
- ARAndy Raskin
... sorry it was bel- sorry, you're right. It was belong anywhere and then it switched to live there.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
It was, it was both. I'm not... I, I may have the, the chrono- chronology wrong.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
But it was the two of those things. You know better than I do, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Um, but either one. I mean, I think they're saying very similar things. Uh, "Hey, there's this new world where you can, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to live in hotels. You can stay in people's places."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAndy Raskin
What's the, what's the object of that game? Is to, to belong anywhere, to live there, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And it's, uh... I love it when it works that way, where it's almost like an asymptotically unachievable thing. Like n-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
You're never literally gonna live there, but... And, and if you think about it, this, this buyer mission statement is this rallying cry. I think of it really as the mission of the company. I mean, what, what is the mission of Airbnb other than to help people live their... You know, if they're gonna be customer-focused and all that.
- 25:17 – 26:35
Naming the obstacles
- ARAndy Raskin
The fourth piece is, okay, well, this object of the game, you know, winning this game, it better be hard, right? Because i- if it's not, like we don't have a... Uh, like why do we even exist? Just like with the movie. Like if it's, if, if, if Luke can just go, like, destroy the Death Star, then, you know, no movie. Uh, so there's gotta be sort of obstacles in the way, things that are preventing them from it. So saying, okay, you wanna, you wanna turn customers into subscribers, so where's ............................ Where they go next is say, "Okay, well, how are you gonna measure lifetime value?" 'Cause now you have this always on thing. How are you gonna measure preferences and how they're changing over the... All these new kind of challenges that didn't exist before. And then... And, and these are like the obst- these are like the, you know, the, the, the monsters in Lord of the Rings or, you know, the, the, the Empire in, in, in Star Wars. These are the obstacles. And I think about them th- because they sound like problems. You know, nor- th- this is what people would normally say, "Oh, these are the problems we solve." But by setting up this story thing first, we've kinda re-packaged them as obstacles to a f- to a, a, a new goal state-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... that we've already, uh, positioned as life and death. So they take on this much more emotional meaning. We understand why they matter.
- 26:35 – 26:57
Overcoming the obstacles
- ARAndy Raskin
And then of course, the last piece is, uh, is, is now talking about, well, how are we gonna overcome these obstacles? How, how... You know, what are the... In the m-, in the m- narrative people in the movie business, they call these like the magic gifts that the main character gets to go, you know, help them win. What are the ways... N- now we can talk about that, and success stories and all, all the rest of the
- 26:57 – 28:25
How the strategic narrative parallels the hero’s journey
- ARAndy Raskin
stuff.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So there's some obvious parallels to The Hero's Journey here. I imagine that was the source of inspiration. And, uh, Star Wars, I think, is like the epitome of that journey. Can you talk about just how related those two are, how you think about that?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. I mean, so The Hero's Journey is this, uh, th- this book that comes from uh, h- um, I think it's Hero of a Thousand Faces?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh, it was a book by Joseph Campbell, a sociologist, and he, uh, looks at myths over different cultures and different times, and he finds this kind of common structure that he calls The Hero's Journey. I mean, it's, there's some controversy about that, about his book, you know?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Is it very male-oriented, uh, sort of take on things, and a bunch of things? But, you know, even th- that aside, I found when I would talk about Hero's Journey and stuff, it's just like, it didn't really tell me what to do.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs) Um, like, okay, yeah. M- I gotta do this pitch, so, uh, you know, in The Hero's Journey, there's like refusal of the call. That's actually that one thing where Luke, like, doesn't... Uh, l- says he doesn't wanna go, and where the buyer says, you know, "Hey, I'm, I'm... I don't have budget." But, I don't know. It was just like too theoretical for me to really, uh... W- when I use it, people seem to sort of glass over it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAndy Raskin
So, I just don't really talk about that at all. But yeah, I mean, that's behind a lot of this stuff, for sure.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, that makes sense, 'cause I think people hear about that all the time and they're like, "Become a better storyteller. Tell your story in this Hero's Journey," and it's like, "I don't know what I'm doing."
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- 28:25 – 29:18
Telling one story well vs. being a good storyteller
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh.
- ARAndy Raskin
Also, I would say, you know, there's storytelling as a skill kind of thing, which is a great thing. You know, you, you learn how to tell stories better, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not really interested in that in my work. What I'm interested in is the one story and the structure of that one story. And this one story, it doesn't really have a... You know, w- the world has moved from transactions to subscriptions. Like, there's not a main character in that story who's like having a problem and getting save... You know, it's, it's almost as if what's happening is, we're present... We're, we're turning the person we talk to into the main character by, by creating this sh- by, by spelling out the shift, we're like changing their world. And we're asking, and we're saying, "Hey, you, you gotta, you gotta change, and do you wanna come with us?"
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, and it's almost like you're putting them into the hero's journey, like you can-
- ARAndy Raskin
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... "Here's how you win."
- ARAndy Raskin
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I
- 29:18 – 31:33
The 5-step framework summarized
- LRLenny Rachitsky
love that. So let me just try to summarize what you shared of this five-step framework. So you start with here's a new, a movement that's happening and you wanna name it. You wanna name the stakes, and there's winners and losers, and here's what's already happening and it's really important. Then you wanna name the, uh, uh, object of the new game, like turning customers into subscribers. Then show the obstacles, here's why it's challenging, and then talk about how you're gonna overcome these obstacles.
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah. And by the way, the naming of the, uh, the object of the new game, I find it often is really nice to do it as a question.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
So, you know... "So we asked..." So, so hey, there's this shift from transactions to sub-, uh, subscriptions, and look, everyone's doing it and, um... So we asked a simple question. What would it take to turn every customer into a subscriber, you know?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And this way, we're kind of bringing the, the person we're pitching to along... Almost like they're coming along with us as a co-, I don't know, adventurer, uh, in, in crafting this story.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
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- 31:33 – 36:12
An example of the 5-step framework in action
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Maybe just to reinforce this even more, what if we go through the five steps and just with one company as an example-
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... and just talk about what each of those were for them?
- ARAndy Raskin
Okay, great. So there's a company called, um, 360 Learning.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh-huh.
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh, so this com- I don't know if folks know, but th- this company has raised, like, over $200 million. They're in the space of, like, um, corporate training software, you know? So big companies, they, they have to train their people on all kinds of stuff. Uh, so you want to go through that one?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, that sounds great.
- ARAndy Raskin
Okay, great. So the story and, and by the way, uh, Nick Hernandez is the CEO, and Nick's been on my podcast, so he's talked about this. So they, for a long time were pitching themselves as collaborative learning. So they have, you know, features that let people sort of collaborate on courses and, uh, all kinds of stuff. And, and Nick is often p- pitching CEOs, of course his team is, is as well, and he told me that it was sort of like kind of falling a little bit flat. Like people, collaborative learning, okay, whatever, you know, how are you different from this learning platform, this learning platform? And so when we worked together, you know, this collaborative learning, it's almost like a category name or a, a descriptor or something. They were so embedded that I decided, like, I don't, I didn't want to, like, take it out, but can we define it in terms of like a, of the story? So the story they came to was, hey, used to be that companies, uh, train their people through a, through a basically a mindset of top-down learning. There's gonna be some, like, learning guru at the company, they're going to get all the courses, they're gonna, you know, put it all together and, like, sort of set out this training, uh, material to everybody. And what's happening now is winning companies are, are, are, are approaching this differently in, in this, they're, they're adopting this approach we might call upskill from within.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Which is, you know, if you look at, like, Google, like there's this page where I think you can go, it's a public, but you can, like, connect with, like, Google's AI experts. They literally turn their internal experts into, like, champions that are educating not even just the company, but even external people. They've created this culture of our own people are gonna be the educators. So that's the shift from top down to this upskill from within. And of course, I just even started to, to do the second piece, which was like, "Hey, there's, (laughs) there's, look at the big companies who are doing this." And then I think they showed, "Hey, you know, you're not doing this." Look, training is becoming very expensive. It's people don't care, people, you know, so th- this is the downside, so we're creating these, these sort of stake. And, and also I think he had something about, you know, how training now, like companies, like, if you don't adapt, like, if you can't get these skills to your people, like, if you're a car company and you can't get these skills around, you know, electric cars, you'll be, you're dead, you know? So Nick was in France and he saw this poster from, uh, a recruiting poster for McDonald's, and it said, "Hey, if you work at McDonald's, you're going to learn from everybody else on your team." And it was like, wow, th- there, there it is, right? So it's another example we used as a kind of winner example. And so then the question became, you know, how... I, I can't remember exactly. It, it was something like, how do you upskill from within? Like, what would it take for you to turn your experts into, like, champions of learning in the company and turn them into stars and all this, right? And then I'm gonna forget here what all the obstacles were, but I think it was things like, well, how are you going to make it possible for anybody to create a course? You know, people who don't even know h- how to, you know, who might have expertise in, in electric engines but, you know, don't know how to create a course, how did that happen? How are you gonna make sure that there's still, like, the, the learning department, they're gonna keep control and, and can, you know, all this... You can imagine all the different kind of questions. And then of course, now 360 Learning starts talking about all that stuff. And what Nick has told me... Uh, I'm actually gonna be on a, on, um, a webinar with Nick where th- someone asked me like, "Could you bring in a CEO who could talk about, you know, this stuff, not just you blabbing on about strategic narrative?" And so Nick is gonna, uh, join it, join it, and we had a dress rehearsal the other day, and he was telling me, like, it's just like when he starts with this now, he doesn't even get the question anymore of, like, well, how are you different from this other learning platform, you know, which all used to always be the thing, and it's, it's just a much more seamless, like, "Okay, yeah, talk to our learning people, get this, get this going." So i- i- it just sounds like it's been really effective
- 36:12 – 39:08
The impact of shifting to the strategic narrative approach
- ARAndy Raskin
for them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's actually was what I was gonna ask next is what kind of impact have you seen with someone shifting their pitch and story from this doc- what was it, the arrogant doctor approach to-
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... the strategic narrative?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah, I mean, it's always this kind of thing I hear. I mean, of course it's very difficult to say, to, to measure this. I mean, like, what was the value of the strategic narrative for Gong in its growth, you know? Was it, was it-... three x versus one x, two x or whatever. I don't ... Who knows, right? Um, but the things I hear from CEOs, a few things. One is that, yeah, when they're pitching, they're not pitching features out of context. They're pitching now a movement, you know, which is a lot better place to be, I think. You know, you're, you're ... In a way, you're not pitching product. Product, you're, product is like a prop for making the story come true, very important prop. (laughs) But there's this higher level overlay that becomes the focus of the conversation at first, and of course, we're gonna get into product, and, and that that helps sell. Once we have this story, then everything in marketing can be all about this story. You know, with Zuora, when they ... if you look at their website, well, when they, when they first started doing this, like, maybe 80% of the, the content is not, "Hey, let me tell you about how Zuora is so great," or, or, "Here's our new release," or whatever. It's, "Here's how music companies are embracing subscriptions. Here's how (laughs) luxury goods companies are embracing subscrip-" ... You know? It's like all these kind of almost trend pieces that become unlimited fodder, and again, you're not touting your ... It's less salesy, right? Another thing I, I just hear always, I just interviewed a CEO this morning for, for my podcast, and, and, uh, this is the first thing he actually said was, it becomes the strategic North Star for the product. So, uh, what he was telling me, and th- this was actually a little unusual. I, I asked him, like, "Why did you come to me at first?" And of course, I've asked him that before, but th- he said something that I d- this time that was, like, a li- a little different from what I had heard before. He said, "You know, we were constantly getting feature requests through sales, through customer success, and we had sort of no, uh, uh, like way, bar for it to decide, like, well, what do we take on, what don't we take on? And this clearly has become our bar." You know, if you think about it, for 360 Learning, you know, does it help us upskill from within? It's in. Does it not? Or it's prioritized, you know? Does it not? Less prioritized. Amit Bendov told me this directly. He said, you know, "We ... Exactly the same thing. We used to c- we, we ... " he said, "We get a lot of requests for features, and a lot of them are basically about opinions, like, some, some way to ke- to, to record opinions."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And this is Gong?
- ARAndy Raskin
"We're not gonna do those." In Gon- at Gong, yeah. "We're not gonna do those."
- 39:08 – 40:36
Companies that are nailing their strategic narrative
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Are there any companies out there that maybe aren't clients that you see as like, wow, these guys are nailing it, and they're doing a great job with the strategic narrative?
- ARAndy Raskin
Well, one that really comes to mind is, I mean, it's been out there for a while, but Drift. You know, Drift comes out with a, with es- essentially, like, a, a chatbot for your website-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... which might be like the 30th chatbot for your website.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And they don't say, "Hey, here's why our chatbot is the best one." They come, they, they start from a completely different place, which is, "Hey, used to be people would sort of wait around for you to get back to them." You know, it was a world of sort of later, of ... They called it the world of forms. You know, you put up a f- a web form and so ... You expect someone's gonna fill it out and maybe wait a few days while you take your sweet time deciding if they're gonna, you're gonna get back to them. And it's, and, and David Cancel and David Gerhardt, uh, start from right at the beginning saying, "Now, we're in a world of, of now, where the, where buyers are ..." They, they, I think they showed this woman. I remember as ... this woman sleeping with her phone. Like, that's your, that's your cross, your prospect. Like, they're, they're just always on, and they're gonna expect you to be engaging with them right away. And they called this conversational marketing. And you know, they really went with that and created, I think, a whole movement, and they broke away from all of the other, you know, chatbots.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Awesome
- 40:36 – 44:15
Why Andy thinks about movements instead of categories
- LRLenny Rachitsky
example. So earlier, you threw out this word category, and I've noticed you haven't talked about category and category creation too much, and I think that you're kind of, uh, not a fan of this idea of creating a category and fi- focusing on category. I'd love to hear your perspective on how that all relates to the stuff you recommend.
- ARAndy Raskin
Lenny, are you trying to get me in trouble like that guy who, that, that, that guy on your podcast who, uh, who attacked, uh, Jobs to Be Done?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Apparently, uh, let's do, let's see (laughs) what kind of trouble we can get into.
- ARAndy Raskin
(laughs) I would, I would soften it a little bit and not just, uh, because I, I don't want the ire of the category design folks, but I, I really would soften it and say I, I wouldn't say I'm not a fan of creating a category. Look, I think the, um, you know, if you look Play Bigger, which has been, become kind of the, the bible of that category creation thing, you know, if you look behind that, they're gonna s- what, what do they say the category is? They say it's a narrative. It's a, a, a story about how the world was to, to how it, how it is, and, and, and so what I find, though, is that when people think about category creation, they tend to just focus on like, okay, well, what is this category name gonna be that we got? What are these three words that are, or two words, whatever, that are gonna sort of magically make us seem like we're totally different from everybody else? And, and, and A, I think that's not really possible. Like, these three words aren't gonna do it. Take Gong. I mean, already other companies were using this term revenue intelligence, right? With Gong, it suddenly becomes a thing because I think they have this opinions to reality story behind it. You know, at one point, I, I again, I asked Amit. He said, "Yeah, in, in ..." he, 'cause he had really ... I remember he really struggled about what should we call it? What should we call it? He came up with str- with, with that one, but then when I asked him later, he's like, "Yeah, you know what? In hindsight, we probably could have called it, like, strawberry intelligence." It didn't matter. It was really the story that, that was sort of mattered. I, I don't-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
I think he was exaggerating a little bit, but, and I think the category, people would actually agree with this. I think they would agree with, like, hey...... your- the, these three words are- it's sort of a, a, a, a shorthand for this movement for- of, of old game/new game narrative. But I guess that- I g- I guess I feel like, uh, still by calling it category and category name, like, we're just focusing on those (laughs) three words so much, and what happens often is, is CEOs will- they'll kind of come up with this little category, like, like what happened with, uh, with Nick at, at 360 Learning, with collaborative learning. We have this name, but we don't know how to tell the story around it, and, um, that, you know, so my feeling is like, "Well, let's, let's focus on the story." So, uh, that's why I talk about strategic narrative and, and movement creation versus category creation. You know, if someone decides that your movement is a category, great, bonus.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I see. So essentially, your approach is category can play a part of this, but there's a bigger question you have of what's the story, what's the movement, what are the obstacles? And category's an element of that, potentially.
- ARAndy Raskin
I mean, I always- almost see them as orthogonal, like, you know, with, uh, HubSpot. You know, HubSpot had this narrative around inbound. You know, it used to be just outbound still, now we're gonna have inbound, (laughs) and that, that wasn't really a category. They've still, I think if you- back then, they were probably known as marketing automation, now they're probably known as CRM, uh, because they broadened, but this movement is the thing that's sort of the constant, uh, uh, and in some ways orthogonal to whatever category they're, they're, they're in,
- 44:15 – 46:33
Should every company have a strategic narrative?
- ARAndy Raskin
you know?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is the strategic narrative framework right for essentially any company? Or is there, like, a sweet spot? And I've noticed most of the companies you've been talking about are B2B SaaS, so I don't know, maybe, like, if there's a spectrum of perfect fit for strategic narrative framework, and then, like, not a fit at all.
- ARAndy Raskin
No.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What's, like- what's along that spectrum?
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah, well, you can see, I mean, it, it takes a little time, I mean, uh, to tell this story, uh, and it's a kind of- you were kind of framing it a little bit, and we're telling it in lots of different channels, right? So I think it does really, um, play well in sort of, like, this enterprise sales context, because, uh, also we have a group buyer there, so it's not just one person who's, you know, doing some research and the gr- there's- there's, like, this whole group has to sort of have a, a united- a uniting story. So I think you're right, that- and noticing that the companies that this tends to, you know, resonate with tend to be B2B enterprise sales, uh, s- technology, I think because often the product is very complicated. You know, that arrogant doctor stuff, you know, comes from an age when th- the things people were selling were, like, products on shelves that didn't change much. You know, cans of soup at the supermarket or, or, like, a car in a dealership. Even software back then, you know, shrink wrapped in a box, doesn't change. Um, soft- B- B2B software, you know, this stuff is changing by the minute, and, you know, does it even make sense to make a claim to say like, "Oh, our- we have these features and they have those features, therefore we're better." I mean, like, does that- can you even- does that make any sense? That said, you know, hey, I was looking for a- um, I was looking for, like, a, a sports watch, you know, like a Fitbit, and then- you know, and I'm- yeah, I'm comparing specs and I'm doing all that stuff, you know, uh, and so that mode of, of buying is still happening, but I think that's- you know, in that- so yeah, when, like, consumer product companies contact me, I, I usually say no. Uh, occasionally they're- they're loo- they still say, "Okay, yeah, we'll- we'll build this- we still wanna have this narrative," but yeah, I think it p- it has the most value, most impactful right away for B2B, uh, enterprise technology companies.
- 46:33 – 48:53
Signs that something is broken in your strategic narrative
- ARAndy Raskin
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Just a few more questions. One is just, what's a sign that you should spend time in this area, that something is broken in your strategic narrative story pitch?
- ARAndy Raskin
Well, I can tell you what I hear from CEOs when they contact me, like, why did I ... I always ask, like, "W- what's happening?" Like, wh- wh- wh- 'cause that, that idea had no CEOs gonna budget a line item for this. I'm basically asking like, "Why was I wrong?" Like, wh- wh- wh- so a few things they tell me. One is that the company is maturing from a s- point- a stage where they've been successful, but that success is- one per- CEO put it this way, as like was brute force of the founders. So (laughs) the founders are in every meeting, they're in ev- in every product discussion, every sales call, and that's shifting. The company's getting bigger. Usually I'm seeing this around, like, series B, where the company is getting so big that they can't be in every, every sales call, every mark- and they're looking to kinda transmit all the good stuff and some direction in a way that people are gonna remember and, and all- and, and all that, everything from how we pitch, to what the product should be and all that, and they see this as, as that. There's another kind of point that I see people contacting me at, which is where they're growing. Th- it's usually a bit later, where they've, they've ha- they've scaled tremendously successfully. Now, we're either acquiring or building out whole new product units.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And that old story we told is just- it's just not big enough, and we gotta expand it to something bigger. This is- this is the example of, like, OneTrust, which, uh, uh, was on my, uh, which I'll have on my- uh, the CEO I'll have on my podcast recently. You know, starts out with just, uh, sort of- I think it was data privacy around, you know, the, the regulations that people have to be able to say don't track me, things like that, and then they're- they buy these other company, and now we have this much bigger, bigger offering, so how do we tell the story?And then I guess the third one is some form of pivot where- Hmm. ... hey, we were telling an old story but we're, you know, whatever, the market changed or whatever and we're, we want to go in a different direction.
- 48:53 – 51:36
Steps to get started on your own
- ARAndy Raskin
So say a founder's listening to this and they're like, "Okay, I realize I need to do this. I haven't spent enough time on this. Something's not working. This could be a huge unlock for us," what are the first couple steps they could take to start to figure this out? And I imagine at some point it's like, "Go talk to Andy. He'll help you through this." Is there stuff you can do on your own? How do you go about... figure this out? Well, a lot of folks have, have emailed me, uh, over the years like, "Hey..." Well, I told you before there were some who emailed me like, "Hey, tried it, didn't work." Hmm. But many, many more have, have emailed me, "Hey, I, I tried it, it did work. Thank you." And so, yeah, just try to lay out that structure and try it. I mean, even when I work with teams, I, I, I adapt what, what might... people might call sort of lean approach. Like, I want to get that thing out there into sales calls. You know, we're not rolling it out to the whole sales team right away, but getting it out into some sales calls and get a sense like, "Hey, is this resonating? Are, are people, like, giving the nods?" Ideally, by the way, one way I, I look to test it, you know, is, is it working is like, when we talk about this shift and the stakes and the, you know... Do they sti- do they kind of say, like, "Yeah, let me tell you how that's playing out for us"? And, or, or I might... Yes, I'm seeing that. Let me thi-... Uh, sometimes I'll literally, I'll ha- I'll train salespeople to ask them that question, like, "Am I crazy or are you seeing this?" And, and what do they say? And, you know, you can usually tell, like, if they're in. And it's qualitative, but I, I really like that kind of, kind of testing, uh, to see if it's working. And I think anybody can do that. Is there a template or guide you have online for folks to follow other than maybe just listening to this podcast and reading? Is there a post that's like, "Here's the framework defined and go follow these steps"? I mean, I guess the closest is that the greatest sales deck I've ever seen post, which is- Oh. ... this war deck. But even there, I, I, I really... People have asked me, like, for a framework, like- Mm-hmm. ... and, and like, um, you know, presentation companies that, "Could we have your, your template so we could, like, make it available with people? We'll, we'll revenue share with you," or so, you know. And I am so against this template. Like, every team I work with, it's different. You know, it's not like the same number of slides. Sometimes we can lay out this shift in one slide. Sometimes it just feels better or the team likes it better, whatever, if it's a few and we're sort of getting people into it. Sometimes it's no slides. (laughs) Um, so I am, am really, uh, hesitant to sort of recommend any template. And what I'd say is, like, these are principles for, you know, for, for building it, not, not any
- 51:36 – 51:53
How to reach Andy
- ARAndy Raskin
prescribed formula. If they do want to reach out to you, whi- while we're on this topic, what's the best way to contact you? Um, connect with me on LinkedIn. That's usually a good one. Um, I, I, um, and I'm usually posting things on LinkedIn that I've learned from working with, uh, other teams. Awesome.
- 51:53 – 55:30
Why the second session is the low point in the process
- ARAndy Raskin
Last question before we get to our very exciting lightning round. I saw, speaking of LinkedIn, you posted how in a working session with companies that the second session is always this, like, low point they all go through and that everyone's starting- Oh, yeah. ... to get discouraged- Yes. ... and pained. (laughs) And, uh, first of all, I love the expectation setting. You're like, "This is gonna suck initially and it'll get better." Why is that the low point, and what is it that they focus on in that second session? Well, apparently I'm not doing enough of a expectation setting- Mm-hmm. ... 'cause, like, what, what that post was about was, like, this, this, this woman who would... So wh- when I work with a CEO, I always ask them to create a what I call strategic narrative team of up to four people, and usually those are leads of, like, marketing, sales, whatever. In this case, the CFO w- was a really important person in this company and, and so the CEO wanted her as part of this team. And she said to me at the end, she's like, you know, "I love where we got to." I always ask, "What worked? What didn't work?" And she's like, "Love where we got to. That worked great. What didn't work was, like, you told us that this second session was gonna be bad, but I don't... I think you could have drilled home more, like, exactly how bad." (laughs) So, I, and then I asked her actually, "Could I, could I have that quote with your face on a slide that I now present to future teams?" She said, she said, "Yeah, you can do that." So the way it wor- the way I work it is in, I have a kickoff session where essentially I'm, I'm, I'm asking people on the team like, "What are these pieces? What is this old game/new game shift? What, what, how do we talk about when to s- set the stakes?" And everything I just talked, t- took you through. And, you know, we have like five people in the room. There's gonna be a, like, we're gonna come out of this with notes and notes, boards, sorry, boards and boards of, of ideas of, like, this stuff, right? And so then two things happen. One is I ask the team to start interviewing customers about how they see the shift, and, and, and sometimes the customers will literally give us the words and, and that can be helpful in sort of aligning if we have differences, but. But I also start working with the CEO one-on-one and we start and we build a first version of this thing. And it's the second session where we present this first version to the team. Hmm. And think about what's happening, like, the team has just given us, like, millions of gold ideas. Like, truly, they're (laughs) all g- and in order to make something sort of clean and powerful, the CEO and I have had to pretty much throw out all of them. You know, (laughs) m- m- save one or two, right? And there's gonna be feelings about that, first of all. Second of all, you know, if this were easy to just, like, get all the, you know, interview everybody, come up with it, they, they would have done it, right? So it's gonna be wrong. But the good news is this is where the team gets to weigh in. I also ask what's working, not working i- in this thing. And when we learn how it's not working, that gives us the juice to then, me and the CEO go back to the drawing board when, uh, we plan on this in advance, we're gonna go back to the drawing board.... and then bring up something good. So I, you know, having a shit draft is, like, a million times more valuable than having all these great ideas, but it's also really painful. Uh, it's painful not only for them, but for me, like, no matter how many times I say this, I want it, I expect they're gonna love it in that (laughs) first one too. Uh, and I'm really pissed off when they don't. But, but luckily now, I've done it enough times, like, I know that's gonna happen.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. I was just watching a documentary about Anne Lamont, who came up with the shitty first draft, uh, concept for writers that I, I stick to (laughs) .
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh-huh. I'm, I'm a firm believer in that.
- 55:30 – 57:40
Why the CEO needs to be part of the process
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
As you were talking, one last thought that I had is, so you work with CEOs and founders. I feel like this could be just as useful to product leaders, product managers working on a product that they're launching, just like, "What is the movement where it's happening? Here's why this product's important." Do you, do you find that too?
- ARAndy Raskin
Absolutely, and very frequently, like, the product leader or chief product officer is part of this group.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
And, and what I'd say though is that, you know, the, the reason I... So when I looked, e- after I did this work for a few years, I looked back and I was like, "Which are the ones where... Which are the engagements I did where, like, I can see it, and it, it just... the narrative is, like, really this true North Star for everything?" And it was always the ones where the CEO was, was leading it, um, not just, like, in name, but, like, literally the person who called me who was, like, in, you know, working on the drafts with me and, like, going through, like... And so initially, I didn't, I didn't re- uh, in- insist that it would be the CEO doing that, but eventually I started to. And I think even for a product leader, like, you're gonna want the supp- you, you don't wanna be just telling that story in product, you, you're gonna want that supported from, you know, uh... The Zuora person, uh, who gave me the initial deck, he said, you know, "It was like I had, it was like I, I had air cover (laughs) and I was just going down and knocking down deals on the ground."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
You're gonna want that air cover in marketing, sales, recruiting, everything. And you know, how much better is it if it's, if it's really driven by the CEO and you have that?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. Is there anything else you wanted to touch on or you wanna share before we get to our very exciting lightning round?
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh, no, except, uh, I, I love category design people and, uh-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAndy Raskin
... uh, it's really just, it's really just, sort of, terms that I like that are... You know what? Forget it. Sk- sk- scratch that part. Uh-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, I thought that was funny.
- ARAndy Raskin
Oh, yeah. Okay, okay, yeah. We could leave it in. We could leave it in. You could even leave this in where I'm telling you to scratch it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAndy Raskin
Okay.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Sounds good. I was actually gonna joke that I was gonna cut this out and leave you hanging, but no, we can, we-
- ARAndy Raskin
Okay. All right, no, you can do that. Yeah. Category design people, love you, uh, don't, don't hate me. Thank you.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Great. I love it. We're gonna be okay, I think.
- 57:40 – 1:02:48
Lightning round
- LRLenny Rachitsky
- ARAndy Raskin
Okay.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got, uh, five questions for you. Are you ready?
- ARAndy Raskin
I'm ready. I haven't seen the que- I saw the que- you sent them, but I didn't really look at them, so I'm, I'm just gonna tell you what I say, w- I'll, I'll go off the top side.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Perfect. Excellent. The best version of this. What are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people?
- ARAndy Raskin
One of the books that I read initially in that, from that Barnes & Noble-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
It was Story by Robert McKee. I think a lot of people know about it who are, sort of, interested in story stuff, but it's, it's kind of a bible of people who are doing, like, screenwriting and stuff. Pretty mu- if you know anyone who's in Hollywood or, like, thought about going to Hollywood, like, they, they, they know about this book. Uh, I love a book called Out of Sheer Rage. It's really not about what I do or anything, but it's, uh, the author is Jeff Dyer. Jeff, he's, uh, he's, he's written a lot of books that are kind of essay memoir, and this is a book about him trying to write a book about D.H. Lawrence, so it's all about procrastinating and, like, oh, like, "Hey, I'm, I'm supposed to write this book. I think I'm gonna, I'm, I'm about to go on a trip somewhere. Should I bring the collected works of D.H. Lawrence with me on the trip 'cause that'll help me start the book, but maybe I shouldn't because it's not gonna... Uh, then, then I, I could come back refreshed without having..." You know, basically it's all that, it's all this, sort of, like, in the head. I, I just really enjoy that book.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What's a favorite recent movie or TV show that you've really enjoyed?
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh, Station Eleven.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Station Eleven, that was just so beautiful to me.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Trippy. It was a trippy movie.
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Did not expect to go where it went (laughs) .
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, I usually ask, what's a favorite interview question you like to ask? And I don't know how often you're interviewing people, but does anything come to mind when asked that?
- ARAndy Raskin
Well, I can tell you one thing I ask when I speak with CEOs-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... um, is I like to ask, uh, "What role this narrative played in your leadership? What does it play in... How d- how does it work in your leadership?" And it's always really interesting for me to hear that, uh, 'cause I'll often hear things that I don't expect.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What's a favorite product you've recently discovered that you just really like?
- ARAndy Raskin
I recently got a Fitbit, I think I may have mentioned (laughs) earlier. I was, like, looking for a product like that, and so far I'm really loving it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. Have you tried other versions of Fitbits, or that's the, the one that's working?
- ARAndy Raskin
I also ordered a Polar-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
... uh, at the same time and wound up returning the Polar.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAndy Raskin
Uh, basically, it, it was just a little clunkier on my wrist, so I, I went with the Fitbit. Why? Do you have one that you recommend instead?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I, I just have the Apple Watch and I've never tried a Fitbit, and it gives me all this stuff that seems cool, but, uh-
- ARAndy Raskin
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:02:48
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