“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Simon Sinek

Entrepreneurs are the leaders of the global economy, driving innovations that improve the lives of billions of people. We started the CSUF Startup Incubator to help entrepreneurs develop the skills necessary to become one of those leaders.

Last week, we were working with Ben, one of our Residents, and his team on the development of his lean model canvas (an overview of his business model) when we came to what his value proposition was. Ben’s team, including a group of Troy High School interns, had done a wonderful job on developing the canvas. It was comprehensive and identified the truly important factors of the business, customers, profits, and costs.

When we came to the value proposition section of the canvas we discovered a lot of the same, excellent detail. Line after line of points on how this service was better than all the rest (and I truly believe it will be better than all the rest). But it didn’t get to the essence of why customers should value his service.

Zack Dafaallah, an entrepreneur, CSUF MBA and professor, and one of our mentors, suggested that we watch the video below and then come back to the value proposition. In this video, Simon Sinek powerfully explains why people do what they do by explaining his Golden Circle concept.

Ben is very sharp and he immediately grasped the importance and went to work on redeveloping the value proposition for his company. It wasn’t difficult, he already had the answer, but it takes looking at an issue from a different perspective to get it right.

This scenario plays out all the time at the Incubator because our Residents know that they don’t know what they need to know to be successful. It’s not about ego for them, it’s about doing what is right by their concept. Being around when these small but meaningful moments happen is a true joy and I look forward to many more of these moments happening as the CSUF Startup Incubator continues to grow and help many more entrepreneurs develop ideas that improve the world.

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