Ranjay argues early-stage founders shouldn't skip purpose work despite survival pressures. Purpose broadens the problem space, helps identify adjacent markets, and attracts investors and talent. Measure it through how often it appears in strategy, hiring, and decisions, not just as a tagline.
Are you saying at day zero, when a company's very survival is at stake, that a founder needs to prioritize their precious limited time to thinking about purpose and then if so, how? We're in a school of engineering. Everybody loves to measure things. If the definition of purpose is this animated idea, you can measure unit economics, you can measure product market fit. How do we measure the purpose?
Both excellent questions. So first of all, I think I am nothing against product market fit. I think we need that. We need to understand unit economics. We need to understand the engine that is going to build a business around us. I think what happens is we start narrow very quickly and I think we then miss out on the opportunity to think expansively about our business. What space are we in? What are the problems we want to solve? We get caught up in the product market fit and sometimes we abstract away adjacent problems we could be solving. So we miss adjacencies in our markets, we miss opportunities around in adjacent areas. So I think purpose is a wonderful vehicle to also sharpen your product market fit in an expansive way. I think it also is a wonderful way to talk about it. You know, founder entrepreneurs are selling all the time, selling their business to not only venture capital to raise money, but also to new employees. Everybody. How do you talk the talk? Let me tell you my product market fit. No, let me tell you about my expansive notion of what my business is all about. So it, even from a, it's building a narrative. It gets you to build a narrative. You want to call it an elevator pitch, whatever you want to call it. But now you come to the next part of it. Robbie, how do you measure yourself? How do I know? Am I, how am I measuring my product, my purpose over here? How am I doing on that very hard question question. And I think this is where it gets subjective really fast. I think the only way to start to imagine ask ourselves this question is to what degree am I living our purpose? How much do we reference and talk about our purpose? When we think about our strategy and our product market fit? When we are hiring people and employees and even thinking of promoting people, how often do we think about purpose orientation? When we onboard new people, do we talk about our purpose? Is it something that is just wallpaper or is it lived purpose? Right. How clear are we about our purpose in our communication with our customers and our ecosystem partners? So I think it is subjective inherently. I think it's also, it's never too early. It gives you the, I mean, I told you, at a very basic level, it gives you a narrative to talk about but I think it is that makes it shallow purposes. That's all you're doing. I need a sales pitch. Thank you Ranjay. I got it. I got the two liner you wanted me to. All this is about elevator pitch? That's all you want to talk about? Elevator pitch? Yes. But what if you took the elevator pitch seriously? What if you try to translate that into something bigger? You are unlocking huge possibility.
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