Your narrative is nothing without a villain
Darth Vader. Hannibal Lecter. Hans Gruber. Just a few of the iconic villains from movies over the years. More often than not, it's these villains that steal the show. People love them. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the movies wouldn't be half as good without them.
You see, the villain actually makes the story.
Because a villain brings conflict. And without conflict you aren't really telling a story. You're just stating some facts.
Nobody would watch Star Wars if it was just about some farm kid called Luke going on a little holiday with his old man best friend and some weird green dude. But throw in a cool-looking guy with a cooler helmet who's hell-bent on taking over the galaxy and you've got yourself a narrative.
And this relates to one of the most common mistakes I see startups make when it comes to their narrative. They skip to the ending. They don't introduce any kind of villain. And that lack of conflict makes the whole thing fall flat.
So here's how to find your villain and add conflict to your product's narrative.
The big bad is your polar opposite
In my Narrative Canvas, I refer to the villain as "The Big Bad".
Because villain always conjures up the idea that it's a person or individual. But actually it's often the case that you're fighting against a concept or idea. So from now on I'll be calling this thing The Big Bad. Got it? Cool.
(On a sidenote, if you sign up to this newsletter you'll be sent a copy of the Narrative Canvas for you to use for your product.)
Now, the easiest way to think about The Big Bad is that it should be the polar opposite of the solution you're suggesting.
Think about it.
Light and dark. Hot and cold. Black and white. The more extreme those opposites are, the greater the conflict. The difference between two shades of grey isn't interesting enough to be a story. Fifty shades? Maybe. But that's a whole different thing.
I digress. My point is that there's no use choosing a Big Bad that's not that different to your product. Because then the conflict is barely there.
So keep this in mind when you start thinking about your Big Bad. Is it the polar opposite to you, or is it just a subtle nuance? Because unfortunately, nuance doesn't sell.
Now, there are three main types of Big Bad. I'm going to explain each type and who they're best suited to.
The three types are:
Status Quo Sloppiness
Category Norm Confusion
Market Leader Malaise
I know - catchy right?
Let's take each in turn...
Status Quo Sloppiness
Now, I want to clarify something. There's a box on my Narrative Canvas specifically for Status Quo. But there's also a box for The Big Bad. What gives?
Well, these two boxes can actually overlap quite a bit. Your Big Bad could actually be the Status Quo itself. That's fine. You're allowed to have overlap. In fact, that's often the sign of a tight and cohesive narrative.
So let's explore what the Status Quo is.
Generally, the Status Quo is how your prospects are currently trying to achieve their Burning Desire. It could be a direct competitor, as in another product that does what yours does. It could be an indirect competitor, as in alternative way of achieving something.
If your product was a social media marketing platform, a direct competitor would be another SMM platform. An indirect competitor would be something else, like a spreadsheet or pen and paper.
When it comes to the Big Bad, you want to focus on the problem presented by the Status Quo.
Status Quo Sloppiness is ultimately referring to a lack of efficiency or effectiveness from an indirect competitor.
Consider a recent client of mine. Their product is an influencer marketing platform. It became clear that their prospects were currently doing it all manually. Finding influencers, reaching out to them, screenshotting stories. It's woefully inefficient and ineffective. That's the Big Bad for the narrative.
It's sloppiness caused by the Status Quo.
You can then frame your product as the more efficient, more effective solution. (But of course make sure to actually dig deeper and be specific as to how it's more efficient/effective.)
So who's this for? Generally, this type of Big Bad is best suited to early-stage startups in an emerging category. There isn't yet an established market for your kind of product. And so people aren't using your kind of product yet. They're using some kind of alternative. Just like the example of my client.
Category Norm Confusion
But what if your main competitors are direct competitors? In this case, the Status Quo is other products that do the same thing as you.
This is for startups that exist in a more mature category. People are already familiar with your type of product and are already using a direct competitor. Now, often we still aren't at the stage where there's a clear market leader. That's important for when we get to the Market Leader Malaise bit.
So how do you deal with this?
Firstly, what you don't want to do is call out a specific competitor. For all kinds of reasons. They might fight back, it might get messy. It might come across as petty or insecure. Plus if your narrative is focused on one competitor out of many, then you aren't competing with the others.
Instead, you need to identify a category norm. This is something commonplace in your product category. Something everyone takes for granted and assumes is just the way things have to be.
Your job is to find that norm and create some confusion. Why is that the way things have to be? Because actually, our product offers a different way.
To do this, you have to figure out your closest competitors (aim for 3 to 5) and then start listing out all their limitations. Eventually you'll start to notice some similarities. These are your category norms.
Then see if your product counters any of those norms. If it doesn't, that's fine, it just means this might not be the right type of Big Bad for your narrative.
But if it does, then you're in a good place to frame that norm as the Big Bad.
Here's a great example from Pitch, a presentation tool:
The highlighted bit introduces their Big Bad - essentially, that other presentation tools don't encourage the kind of creativity needed to bring your pitch to life.
They're saying, "You know how most tools are like this? Well we wondered why. And then we built something different."
They aren't calling out Powerpoint or Keynote or Canva or any of those tools. They're calling out a category norm. They're picking a fight with a concept.
Market Leader Malaise
Which brings us to our final type of Big Bad: Market Leader Malaise.
This is the one time you can call out an individual competitor. Why? Because the competitor you're calling out is the clear leader in your market. They're the default, incumbent solution for anyone looking to buy your category of product.
This is a classic David vs Goliath kind of narrative. An underdog story. And the purpose of your narrative here is to pinpoint a specific limitation of the leader, the Big Bad, and present how your product exploits that limitation.
Think of this one as a hyper-specific version of the Category Norm Confusion type. Aimed purely at the market leaders.
Example time?
Take a look at Hey, an email platform in a world where email platforms have had market leaders for years. To the point it was ridiculous to even try to take them on. Yet that's exactly what Hey did, with a narrative that frames Google, Outlook, and Apple (the market leaders) as the Big Bad.
They call out the complacency of the products at the top of the food chain. And then go on to explain how their product improves on the limitations of those cumbersome market leaders.
It goes without saying that this kind of Big Bad narrative only works in established markets where there are a handful of products way out ahead at the top. And of course only works if your product does bring something new to the table.
That wasn't so bad was it?
So there we go. Now you know that having a Big Bad is crucial to designing a narrative that actually works. And you also know there are three main types of Big Bad.
That's all from me today. I'm off to watch Star Wars. Again. Sorry not sorry.
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