
The Art of Writing One-Sentence Product Descriptions - davesuperman
https://medium.dave-bailey.com/the-magic-formula-to-describe-a-product-in-one-sentence-175ce38619c7
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natvod
Writing effective one sentence product descriptions can be boiled down to:

Describe in simple terms a major product feature that either or both:

a) solves the biggest pain point for your customer

b) makes you the most different from your closest competitor

Examples:

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all website and app user actions - no coding required

[https://mailchimp.com/](https://mailchimp.com/): Easiest to use email
marketing platform

[https://www.pipedrive.com/](https://www.pipedrive.com/): Drag and drop
interface CRM - view all deals by type at a glance

[https://www.getrevue.co](https://www.getrevue.co) \- Effortlessly send a
weekly newsletter to engage your audience

[http://www.artofemails.com/](http://www.artofemails.com/) \- Proven
prewritten sales email templates

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hammock
You took one point from OP ("lead features") and missed the others.

For example, the "input output" part. Without that you are probably missing
some representation of the user/customer in your description.

Ab rollers would never sell if they said "gives you rock hard abs" without the
"just 20 minutes a week!" part.

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haswell
I was hoping for more insight into _how_ to distill a product into that one
line sentence. Obviously there is no magic formula for this, but the article
mostly consists of "You should be doing this" with little other substance.

> I’d argue that even the most complex SaaS platforms can be simplified with
> an illustrative lead feature.

Again, was really hoping for some insight into _why_ he argues this.

I work for a company that provides a SaaS/PaaS product that is immensely
powerful but notoriously difficult to describe. The company is well
established in the marketplace, but still has a difficult time getting 3rd
party developers on board unless those developers had prior exposure to the
product for some reason. I've often felt that the answer involves some
distillation of the functionality into a ridiculously short description, but
have not been successful in crafting such a description (yet).

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jwilliams
Something that works for me - I avoid distilling. Instead I focus on a killer
opening line.

It's really hard to take four, or whatever, paragraphs and reduce that to one
sentence. It'll feel lossy every step.

Instead I focus on the _first and most powerful_ sentence. From there I
imagine it opening up a dialog where all the possibilities and nuances can
flow. But you'd got to start at that sentence.

Now, maybe it'll not be that _exactly_ , but I find that process a lot more
fruitful than a distilling one.

~~~
reubenswartz
I agree-- the idea of the first sentence is not to completely describe
everything, but to get people interested enough to ask for more information.

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CalChris
The elevator pitch is fundamentally a pitch. And a one sentence summary is
fundamentally a summary. They're fundamentally different.

I was sailing with a buddy (a made man in SV) and he asked me what I was
working on. I blurted out a one sentence summary and did it ever hit. I hadn't
even thought of running through an elevator pitch because I was racing and was
really thinking about sail trim. But I remember the summary and I'll use it. I
may even lead the pitch with it.

BTW the _worst_ single sentence summaries are the Hollywood summaries: _this
is Airbnb for Ubuntu distributions_. That sort of summary says that you
haven't really thought it out. It's a trope and their eyes just glaze over
immediately.

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hive_mind
The word "Mercedes" in Kalanick's summary is a highly loaded word with a lot
of prior meaning attached to it.

Similarly, I think, when people say "Airbnb for something", they're using
shorthand for something with a lot of prior meaning attached to it.

My point: we're being too harsh on those who use "Uber for this" or "Airbnb
for that"... they're using shorthand the way Kalanick used "Mercedes".

~~~
dalbasal
I agree.

Ultimately, writing that _one sentence with unmph_ is harder than it looks.
Sometimes "Uber for__" is concise and conveys lots of meaning, sometimes it's
vague and meaningless.

I think the biggest trap in the "A for B" formula is trying to ride on the
prestige of B. That's why there are so many "Apple of X." What they're trying
to convey is "awesome, stylish & successful" or somesuch. It's like calling
yourself "Michael Jordan of __". You're just being obtuse in telling me that
you're awesome.

"Uber for tripsitters" OTOH conveys actual meaning. Press a button, a
freelance tripsitter will arrive.

~~~
dsjoerg
I had to google tripsitter.

~~~
dalbasal
Then you're probably not in the target market. :)

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ohdrat
Read old TV Guide plot summaries, e.g. Mr Ed, Season 1 Busy Wife: Carol gets
wrapped up in a woman's club and completely ignores Wilbur. It's up to Ed to
try and help her overcome the obsession.

~~~
tutufan
"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she
meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."

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mozumder
There's a Facebook group that's dedicated to One Sentence Startup Pitches:
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/1500321840185061/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1500321840185061/)

    
    
      "A dating site for vegans: NeverMetHerbivore"
      "A combined BBQ restaurant + strip club: Ribs for Your Pleasure"
      "Autocorrect for tattoos"

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JohnJamesRambo
"Something where you can type someone’s name and find out a bunch of
information about them."

Well Mark Zuckerberg nailed that one describing his Facebook.

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pcrh
In summary, absolutely nobody thinks about your startup or product as much as
you do.

You need to pitch at their level, not your own.

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tswartz
A brief, but interesting post on how viral products are simple and can be
easily described in one sentence.

>The format of both descriptions is the same: “You do X and Y happens.” X is
the input and Y is the output. This input-output pair matches our intuition
about how software works. Simplifying the product as a straightforward input
and desirable output creates the sense that it’s an ingenious idea.

I think it's important to have a simple product and using a feature to explain
it makes sense. However, this brought to mind the sales and marketing idea
that it's better to sell benefits, not features. I'm not sure where I sit on
which approach is better, I suppose they each have their purpose. I definitely
find myself pitching my side projects based on the feature, not the benefit :)

~~~
scribu
I think you can use both:

Start with the lead feature, so that the potential customer has a simple idea
to kick around in their head.

Then, describe the benefits, giving them a fuller story for why they should
use the product.

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overcast
Like most things, if it's too difficult to describe, it's probably too
difficult to use. The lack of any core feature is the death of most products.

~~~
goatherders
Well said. It shocks me how complex people make their value proposition for no
real reason but vanity. "We are like Air BNB for lawn care with a focus on
service and quick delivery."

Ugh. How about "Push a button and your lawn is mowed in 48 hours."

Every business should have a one sentence value prop: Twitter: "open the app
and get the news in less than 5 minutes."

Snapchat: "see what your friends did today in the time it takes to ride the
elevator to your office."

Stripe: "spend three minutes pasting some code and start accepting credit card
payments."

Devzilla: "create an account in two minutes and get more web development
leads."

So on and so forth....if you can't describe it like that then it is too hard
to use.

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dragonwriter
> Every business should have a one sentence value prop:

Sure, but the elevator pitch for _customers_ is not the same as the elevator
pitch for _investors_.

~~~
goatherders
Fair point. I spend zero time thinking about investors.

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davemel37
one of the top branding experts in the world,Al Ries, says the purpose of a
slogan is to give your users the tool for explaining why someone should use
your product when discussing it with a friend.

[https://youtu.be/EAXCu1zeaaI](https://youtu.be/EAXCu1zeaaI)

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todd8
I marvel at how movie plots can be summed up in one sentence. On-line movie
services (ATT UVerse, etc.) give such concise descriptions in so little space.

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ak39
The inability to formulate a one-sentence product description is a symptom of
an imprecise product strategy. It's not a case of "in spite of it".

A mature & reliable product strategy (who you're targeting, what
differentiated value you're adding to your targets etc) will automatically
yield that one-sentence.

No art about wordsmithing. All about a valuable product.

~~~
mconnolly
Sort of, but for highly complex systems (take something like real estate for
example) describing it in this way is difficult not because of lack of product
and targeting knowledge, but because the customer is so far behind in their
knowledge of how the process works.

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jbreckmckye
I prefer product haikus:

\---

This smart microwave,

Explodes when our servers fail,

Sorry about that.

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sirgg0119
what gets lost is the pitch changes depending on the audience... there is no
one universal sale. Now I think the concept's valid, but focus differs

