Vision, Mission, and Reasons to Believe

I am passionate about this topic.

Time and time again we connect with Founders who struggle to align their team, investors, and customers. All startups have some level of inertia to overcome to build momentum.

Crafting and refining your company's mission, vision and reason's to believe isn't just for non-profits or benefit corporations. Founders want their business to grow. They want to hire the best talent. They want to funding rounds that are oversubscribed.

There are also enough things about building and growing a startup that are hard so if they can find an easier way we've observe that they'll typically be interested.

Creating a vibrant vision of the future, crafting a meaningful mission, and building a set of reasons to believe that will resonate with customers is critical to helping you build momentum forward.

Impact-driven founders are the most successful. [1]

Step 1: Clarify your Vision

Many B2B software company Founders have a grand ambition. It's not enough that this vision live inside the founders head. It must be out in the open and repeated at every opportunity. This is your north star after all and it should sound grand.

Gates saw a computer on every desk and in every room. Patrick Henry proclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death." Bezos relentlessly sold everything online, and JFK put us on the path to put a man on the moon by the end of a decade. [2]

Boldness and ambition required.

At RevPipes our vision is a world where Founders of B2B software companies quickly become clear, focused, and confidence about how to accelerate revenue with ease to build a better future faster.

Key Action: Practice, clarify, practice, and clarify.

Step 2: Clarify your Mission

While the vision is grand, there's a mission that you're on day in and day out that people who are living in the now must want to help you champion. This helps you drive purpose for each individual connected to your organization.

It's a strong foundation that focuses energy and attention, sparks new ideas, and shapes the culture of your startup. [3]

You want your team to be drumming to the same beat on your path to a billion dollar business. [4]

At RevPipes our vision is to create offerings that play a meaningful role in the lives of founders of B2B software companies.

Key Action: Practice, clarify, practice, and clarify.

Step 3: Reasons to Believe

Why should your customer believe you and believe in you? What makes your promise credible and trustworthy?

As you speak with customers they will tell you why they believe in you. If they are not, then please ask them. Your company's life depends on you listening, and incorporating this feedback in a top three to five reasons customers believe in you. [5]

At RevPipes Founders tell us many reasons why they believe in what we are doing. Here are a few:

We help drive clarity quickly. No time wasted.
While we have been there, done that (and it shows!), we are also current on the digital transformation happening within Go To Market.
We're the right fresh set of eyes to look at their circumstances.
We provide a strategic/thinking framework that makes decision making easier and quickly gets to tactical items.

Key Action: Practice, clarify, practice, and clarify.

Next Steps

Find a partner, a consultant, a board member who will hold you accountable to discussing these three elements with you on a weekly basis. Record it, listen to it. Clarify it.

Use each and every opportunity to share it: a team meeting, a meeting with your co-founder, a board call, a meeting with a prospective vendor, or partner, a sales call.

Use your free time to clarify. Block 30-45 minutes each week to reflect.

The Result

Most founders have some of this in their head (or in some notes document somewhere), but no one knows you or your startup. The impact of repeating this over and over again will start to reveal itself in 12-14 months. The compounding effect of the repetition is what will help you overcome inertia and propel you toward the desired dent you are looking to make in the universe.

Onward.