An Exercise in Startup Ambition: What’s your ask of Obama?

Given that he doesn't have much to do these days, Barack Obama goes poking around Crunchbase one day and he stumbles upon your startup.  He finds your company, and obviously being super impressed, he reaches out and asks you what he can do to help.

What do you ask of him?  (Or anyone else on that level...)

This isn't an easy answer.  The truth is, you're probably not ready to handle whatever the former leader of the free world can do for you, but you're obviously not going to let this opportunity go, right?  You have to come up with something.

This is a problem of multiple dimensions:

First off, you have to narrow the scope of possibilities.  This is hard.  Obama could probably do just about *anything* for you, but you have to pick one or two concrete things.  You can't be like, "I don't know, what were you thinking?"  He doesn't know anything about startups and you're lucky he even thought of you at all.  You're going to now throw it back to him to plan out what he might do for you?  No, you have to make an ask.

Second, anything you come up with is barely going to register for him in terms of level of impact, but it's going to be more then game changing for you--it's going to feel ridiculous.

Maybe your company is seed funded, or has some friends and family, or is barely more than a Powerpoint.  Even if you have your Series A, the scale that you're operating on probably doesn't even come close to what he's been thinking about these days.  He's on the "ending malaria/making sure every woman in the world gets equal pay" kind of level", and you're out there building an app with three devs, some cheese dip and an office dog.  Even if you have a worthwhile mission, you're going to have to get over the fact that anything that he could come up with that he'd pay attention to is going to feel crazy to even ask of him. 

But this is how you make a leap as a startup.  

One of the easiest things you can ask of something like that is to invest.  Investing insures that someone is always part of your company.  It gives you an excuse to e-mail them and your updates keep you top of mind for them.  It gives you an excuse to ask for more later.  Getting someone to invest in your next round is like getting to wish for more wishes and having it granted.

Get over whether you know if this person invests or not or what size check they can write.  Any person who gets to this level of success could probably write at least a $10k check or maybe more than you think.  Remember that you're not asking for their money--you're providing them with a great opportunity for them to trade their wealth for interestingness.  This is something they do all the time in a variety of ways.  

Advisory boards are also a great way to rope people in that you probably have no business getting on boards.  The key is to make them about something bigger than just your company.  If you're a financial startup, make them about financial empowerment.  If you're a fashion company, make it about style trends.  If you're a consumer product, make it about world class customer experience, etc.  

It's really easy to be focused on short term goals as a founder--getting to that next raise, making that next hire, or just making sure your bills are paid.  The companies that make huge leaps in impact and value execute these kinds of headline making moves, leaving their competition far behind in the rear view mirror.  Knowing what these moves could even be is hard, and it's probably something worth talking to your investors or thought partners about, and definitely something to plan around.  This comes into play so many times.  People you know will say, "Hey, I know the former CEO of X and she's retiring and looking for something to do."  

Don't let those opportunities pass you by.