Self-sustaining through Authenticity
The founder super-power in the post-AI age
Yesterday in Reza Satchu’s Founder’s Mindset class at Harvard Business School, I had 30 seconds to show the class how I would ‘hook’ an investor during a pitch. The typical Harvard twist was that I was pitching live to Reese Witherspoon…
I led with a hook that I have used before, as it is the deepest driver for me building ‘memo’:
‘my father died before I was born, so I grew up with only a few photos to account for 50% of my DNA’.
I then changed the focus from my usual pitch, to the stories that I had to imagine or glean about my father, and, to how I was building ‘memo’ so that others have those stories preserved.
Reese liked the pitch and thought my hook was powerful.
It resonated because my founder story is authentic, vulnerable, and tailored to the person I am pitching.
Pitching, like selling, is about building a connection with someone else. Reese is in the business of stories, and so a business dedicated to enabling better storytelling through ‘making photos speak’ resonated with her.
This is a skill that is inherently human and can’t be outdone by AI.
It is, I would argue, the most important ‘superpower’ muscle that founders need to build. It is also so much more powerful if it is authentic.
This morning I read an article in the FT that had the closing quote: ‘In an automated world, authenticity is the ultimate luxury.’
We are entering a world where authentic human-created content will be a significant differentiator, especially in direct-to-consumer markets.
This gives me great hope.
It gives me hope because the authenticity of human-created content is expressed in no better form than through our memories and our own voices. Memories will be the bedrock of all authentic human creative content.
There is beauty in the stumbling nature of our recollections in voice notes and in those blurry photos taken with our friends.
‘memo’ is building for this: a new form of individual-first social media. A platform that is private by design to collate your memories of the moments that matter in your life, and to selectively share them with those who experienced them with you.
Social communication and storage as it should be - authentic, dramatic, but not performative.
Being able to act authentically, like I did yesterday in class with Reese Witherspoon, is partly what makes us self-sustaining as entrepreneurs.
As a solo founder, there is great liberation in committing to being self-sustaining, to being authentic to yourself, and accepting responsibility that you, and you alone, are the one who will build the future you envision.
Right now, the authenticity of my story-telling, the vision of the future that I can see on the horizon, and the reality of my obsession enabling me to execute is really all I have.
I am just at the start of my journey, a journey where I will self-sustain myself.
I have this confidence thanks to the enduring love of my mother, and, all the experiences that I have been given in my academic and professional career to date, but perhaps most importantly due to the thrilling founder environment that is emerging at HBS.
We are being empowered to be authentic, vulnerable, and aspirational.
I remember the first pitch I made for my first business, Beneficially British, when I was 16 in a disused office in Stratford, East London.
I wish I could have told that nervous teenager that 15 years later, he would have the skills and confidence to pitch with no preparation for a Hollywood megastar in front of a class of 100…
This founder journey is pretty cool, and one that is inherently human.
One that I will be able to preserve thanks to ‘memo’.