The evolution of the startup pitch: from napkin to traction data

When I was first introduced to the startup world, the word “pitch” came up in nearly every conversation. It is a term from baseball—a sport I still have yet to understand. This certainly didn’t help the fresh-faced foreigner that I was at the time.

I’ve listened to hundreds of pitches from Hidden Founders applicants these last eight months, and most have confessed they expected more returns from their pitching efforts.

I’m hoping my insights will save founders some time, help them avoid stagnation, and involve more people in their journey.

The who and the why

You pitch to friends, family, and fools initially. Depending on the type of entourage you’ve been blessed with, you can decide whether to get constructive feedback from them or simply use this time as practice.

Who you pitch to next, however, deserves important attention. According to Eric Ries and Steve Blanks, you must “get out of the building” to pitch to your target audience or users. If, instead, you jump straight to CTOs, investors, and the media, you’ll have made the classic noob mistake.

For the record, that’s exactly what I did in my first tour as a founder. I understand the temptation, but don’t do it. Your new entourage now must be your users.

Pitching to your market

In my experience, engaging your market from the get-go is the hardest step and takes a lot of maturity to handle. This is exactly why many first time founders avoid it.

Sadly, most will ask themselves the wrong questions in this phase. Will the guy I just added on LinkedIn talk to me for 15 minutes? Does he just see me as another startup hippie? Is he impressed yet? No?

The lesson here is to worry less about your ego and more about the person in front of you.

If you go down this path, you’ve lost before you’ve even begun. The lesson here is to worry less about your ego and more about the person in front of you. Customer discovery is about listening after all.

Pitching from a napkin to co-founders, business angels, and prolific bloggers is a sure way to get permanently written off.

What happened to the napkin?

The napkin is still a great way to capture an idea that spontaneously pops into your head. The problem is first-timers have a hard time gauging the pitch to expectation ratio.

Here are some quick reminders: The napkin is for friends and family. Use animated mockups and a business model canvas for target users, while a minimum viable product (MVP) with traction is for the potential co-founder or CTO. A Product/Market fit, on the other hand, will get you VCs.

Based on the illustration below, the more you go to the right, the more chances you’ll get what you pitch for.

Napkin maxed out

Pitch hacking

One focus

Idea stage is a myth