50 Ideas to Kickstart Your Pitch
Lately I’ve been focusing on how pitches are really about telling stories about disruption. See How to tell disruptive stories, the Piggly Wiggly way, and my storytelling cheatsheets #1, #2, and #3.
Your business may have invented a new behavior, targeted an underserved market, achieved some technological breakthrough or is just plain better (according to you).
As founders develop their pitch and get feedback, it’s easy to get stuck. How do you stay true to the story you want to tell while anticipating objections?
I love brainstorming with founders on how to tell their story. One thing a good brainstorming session does is remind you that there are many ways to tell a story, potentially an infinite number.
You have to have the confidence to choose where to focus.
So I put together fifty storytelling ideas to help you get started (or unstuck) when you’re telling your own story of disruption.
I’ve categorized them by the type of disruption (new behavior, new market, breakthrough, better/faster/cheaper), and also by the most common objections investors raise.
New Behaviors
The focus of your story is about a new type of behavior, e.g. sharing your location by “checking in” (Foursquare).
Story ideas categorized by objections they address.
People will never do that
Use visuals like a flowchart to show before vs after (make sure your ‘after’ case is 10x better).
Describe another industry where people have done something similar. “Peleton pioneered bringing the classroom experience to home gyms. We do that for first aid training.”
Use animation or video to show your product in action (can be really effective but expensive).
Have a case study or endorsement from a well-known company. “We’re working with Toyota to deliver 1000 VR test drives in a pilot. They believe VR is the future of car sales.”
Highlight usage metrics that show surprising traction. “Delivering medical supplies to remote hospitals is risky and difficult. Our drones have a 99.9% delivery success rate at a 50x reduction in cost.”
It’s way too complicated or expensive
Talk about a strategic partnership that removes barriers for you. “Antique store owners are the last people to digitize (duh). So we partnered with the top antique insurance company to bundle our platform with their insurance.”
Highlight the world-class skills and experience of your team. “Our founders have managed hundreds of residential rental units over years, doing everything from unclogging toilets to chasing tenants for rent checks. We know all of the problems of being an independent landlord.”
Reveal a new technology, regulation, or business model that has removed cost and complexity. “It used to be impossible for small e-commerce brands to afford quality photography. With AI it’s possible to replace photographers and retouchers.”
Own the difficulty but show how deeply passionate you are about solving this problem. “Growing up I was always worried about money and it affected my health and my opportunities. I’ve figured out how to get lower income people to save because I don’t think like a bank. I think like someone who was evicted from his apartment.”
New Markets
The focus of your story is how you’ve found an underserved market, e.g. a credit card for founders.
Story ideas categorized by objections they address.
Your target market is too small or unprofitable
Explain why this market is actually a diamond in the rough based on some insight you have that others have overlooked. “People think it’s rude to give used goods as gifts. We use art to upcycle goods so they’re literally better than new.”
Show how this small market leads to a bigger opportunity. “Helping medical office assistants manage calendars means we own appointment booking. That’s where the opportunity is.”
Show why it’s advantageous to incubate your technology in a niche market while it’s developed/tested/certified. “People need proof that pre-fabricated housing works. We’re focusing on specialized sporting events like the Olympics to prove we can rapidly build beautiful homes.”
Explain why this small market is about to explode. “Mobile car charging will go from niche to mainstream as more people buy electric cars but live in buildings too old to retrofit.”
You won’t be able to expand off the beachhead
Explain how focusing on a niche market will let you out-innovate incumbents, see The Innovator’s Dilemma.
Quantify the value you’ll gain in your initial target market (profits, IP, volume) and how that can be invested in expanding to adjacent markets. “Building premium products for the home podcasting market will give us the scale to target the studio market.”
Focus on how dissatisfied adjacent markets are and why they’ll welcome your innovation. “Our SaaS tools for coaching will be great for therapists who have even greater paperwork and admin needs.”
If you’ve done it before with other products or companies, lead with that.
If your beachhead is a country, talk about things they share with other countries: standards, regulations, language, culture etc.
You don’t know this market well enough
Quantify the research you did at the beginning. “We interviewed 500 vets and 1000 pet owners and we’re advised by the CEO of a pet insurance company. That’s how we realized there’s a huge problem no one has solved in this market.”
Highlight the industry experience of your team and advisors.
Show lots of customer logos, especially the largest and most difficult to close deals. “We are the only startup ever to pass ABC’s vendor certification process.”
Show detailed product metrics, GTM traction or test results that are undeniably impressive. Revenue is usually the least impressive metric.
Demonstrate your thought leadership in this market through content you’ve published, membership in trade associations, public speaking.
Breakthroughs
You’ve achieved some scientific or technological breakthrough that enables something new, e.g. new therapeutics, a new manufacturing processes.
Story ideas categorized by objections they address.
It doesn’t actually work (never assume everyone believes your breakthrough)
Tell a personal story about one user whose life you changed. “Since losing a limb, Huy couldn’t do many activities with a cheap prosthetic. He’s been using our robotic arm for six months and can now cook and do sports like he used to.”
Peacock your team, show off their advanced degrees, industry experience and accolades. “Dr. Martinez is the foremost expert on treating rabies in wild dogs, working with the largest rabies NGOs in the world.”
Use external sources to validate your work and tell your story, eg journals and PR (but summarize them if they are highly technical).
Start by being even more skeptical than who you’re pitching, then crush their objections (more people should do this). “Many people have tried to build an AI admin assistant and failed because it misses the nuances needed to appear professional. Ours doesn’t. The person who organized this meeting, answered your preliminary questions and made you laugh? That’s our AI product.”
Show the product working in the real world (not the stock photo world), especially for hardware, manufacturing or any product that is easy to visualize. This takes the breakthrough out of the lab and into the world.
Count all your failures leading to your breakthrough, see Thomas Edison.
It works but there are too many alternatives/workarounds
Explain how your IP strategy makes it difficult/impossible to develop alternatives. This is not easy if you need to go deep into technical details. But often worth it.
Talk about all the trade-offs, compromises and friction your customers will face choosing alternatives.
Talk about changing market forces that help your solution vs others. “It will always be cheaper to manufacture overseas at scale. While more expensive, 3D printed shoes are more sustainable and allow for personalization, two things Gen Z cares about.”
It will be too difficult to commercialize
Give equal weight in your pitch to your go to market strategy. “We didn’t build our micro-turbine product just in the lab. It was co-developed with the Navy who will also be a major buyer.”
Give examples of other similar breakthroughs and how they successfully commercialized. “LED lightbulbs were designed to work with existing sockets. Our smart water filters can be installed in any faucet.”
Use a diagram to show where your product fits into the supply chain. Describing the supply chain is a huge confidence boost to your pitch.
Better, Faster, Cheaper
You want to show how incremental improvements in feature, price or other benefits can be game changing, e.g affordable e-commerce tools for SMEs.
Story ideas categorized by objections they address.
There is no moat
Use growth metrics to show how far ahead of the competition you are.
Use focus as your moat. “Everyone is focused on real estate tools for finding and listing properties. We only care about using AI help buyers and sellers negotiate better prices.”
Have a fast follower strategy, show how you win by drafting behind bigger competitors. “The Korean e-sports market is always 18 months ahead. We study what they do and duplicate it in North America.”
Nice product but you can’t iterate fast enough
Use growth metrics to prove how much faster you iterate.
Highlight the world-class skills and experiences of your product development team.
Talk about product development velocity and how you achieve it. “We’re the smallest company in our market but we’ve released more features in one month than all our competitors did in a year. We have a continuous development process that turns customer feedback into product releases in days.”
The market is too crowded
Segment (and re-segment) your market until you have a niche that isn’t crowded and you can own, make that your beachhead. “People like Uber and Doordash do peer to peer delivery which is why we only focus on large/bulky items.”
Double down on a unique point of view and why it’s different from all your competitors. “Our corporate retreats have no electricity, wifi or cell phone coverage. It’s only for people who value peace and tranquility.”
Show how this market is growing fast, how all ships are rising with the tide. “Growing cities like Toronto create more demand for skilled labor than the market can supply. This helps all vocational schools but especially one that can tap into the international market like ours.”
Your feature/benefit (including price) isn’t valuable enough
Share detailed customer research that points to your features/benefits as the ones they want.
Do a deep dive into how dissatisfied users are with existing solutions using case studies and testimonials.
Cite 3rd party research talking about changes in preferences that help you. “Mentorship programs have always existed in corporations. But a recent study showed that due to remote work, entry level Gen Z employees are desperate for more mentorship to further their careers.”
You won’t be scalable or profitable
Talk about unfair advantages you have in acquiring users, eg viral marketing, exclusive distribution.
Talk about unusual ways you can lower costs, eg AI, access to new suppliers or upcycling waste products. “Lactose is being discarded as more people prefer cheese over liquid milk products. We turn that waste product into ethanol.”
Talk about high-margin value-add products you can add, eg loyalty programs, gift cards, additional seat licenses.
Fifty-one…
Add your own ideas in the comments. As I said, there are an infinite number of ways to tell a story.