By Kathryn Keefer
A competitive startup environment combined with shrinking attention spans makes a great pitch more important now than ever. A pitch serves as your startup’s first impression to the most important audiences: investors, clients, and partners. In today’s startup world where investors hear dozens of pitches a week and new products launch daily, you don’t have minutes to win someone over. You have seconds.
Your pitch is your startup’s crucial first impression. It is the moment where people decide they either want to join the team, or check out completely. Truthfully, you must grab someone’s attention within the first 10-20 seconds of a pitch, because the audience has already made a judgment about whether they will continue listening.
Great pitching and storytelling are core skills to help successfully launch a startup. When done right, a pitch can build trust and create opportunities that would’ve otherwise been unknown.
What Makes a “Good” Pitch Today
One of the most important characteristics of a good pitch is clarity. Articulating the problem you’re solving and the solution you are offering in a way that anyone can understand. A pitch full of technical details can demonstrate expertise, but it can also lose the interest of those you’re trying to win over.
Just as important is tailoring your pitch to the audience in front of you. Investors and potential partners want to understand your business model and early success. Clients want to know how your startup provides a solution to a problem they are facing. When you try to pitch to every audience the same way, you may not connect with anyone.
Even if your pitch is perfectly clear and aligned with your startup’s mission, it is critical to grab the audience’s attention immediately. A compelling opening can pull the audience into your world, whether it is a powerful story, a strong question, or a sharp statement of the problem your startup addresses. Once you have their attention, you can begin building trust, understanding, and potential investments. Getting an audience’s attention is one thing, holding on to it comes with great storytelling.