What I learned about business from Will Ferrell’s SNL audition

Watching a comedy giant before he was great is like seeing a startup’s first pitch

Two things happened to me today: I discovered Will Ferrell’s audition for SNL (“Saturday Night Live”), and I had first meetings with four early stage startups. If you could predict Will Ferrell’s success from his early work, how might we apply lessons from this audition to early stage businesses and investor pitches?

Premise + Promise

Will’s third bit is the Get Off The Shed guy. He introduces the sketch as “This is Dutch Litchford. And we’re at an outdoor barbecue.” The premise is revealed pretty soon after that.

The premise is that he alternates between having a pleasant, boring conversation and aggressively shouting at his kids. That’s it. He plays that out for about a minute and a half.

“GET OFF THE GODDAMN SHED! OFF THE SHED! We got hotdogs too if you want.”

But the director and decision-makers in the audience would see promise beyond these 90 seconds. The premise and the character could play out…