Pitching tends to be a series of meetings of increasing length. First comes the proverbial elevator encounter, where you only have time for a sentence or two that will get you a contact, which might lead to an initial very short (maybe ten-minute) follow-up over Zoom. Then you might get an invite to actually come into the office for a half-hour in-person meeting. Then, hopefully, an invite will follow for an hour-long meeting with the other partners. In each case, your desired outcome is precisely the same: to leave them intrigued enough that they want to have another meeting.
You need a one-sentence hook that opens up to a one-minute pitch that opens up to a three-minute pitch that opens up to a ten-minute pitch.
You'll end up with a set of little pitches that function a bit like one of those Russian nesting dolls, a matryoshka. Let's look at our fictional venture, Fitaco, to see what this looks like in practice.
"Imagine a taco truck dedicated to delivering healthy food to you wherever you are."
"Consumers in the US spend $331 billion per year on fast food, and most of it is really unhealthy. In fact, the National Institutes of Health says that a fast-food diet may kill more people prematurely than cigarette smoking. We're addressing that with a new brand of health-conscious fast food — tacos! — delivered directly to your home or office."
"We all know that we should eat healthy, right? Our moms told us we should eat healthy. Yet all of us sometimes sacrifice eating healthy for the convenience of fast food. Americans spend over three hundred billion dollars per year on fast food, and now, with all the on-demand delivery apps, we can get unhealthy fast food delivered directly to our doorsteps — so we don't even have to burn any calories getting it!
But what if we could get healthy meals fast, meals designed by a nutritionist? And what if they were tacos — because everybody loves tacos! I'd like to tell you about Fitaco, a new startup that, as the name implies, delivers tacos that keep you fit. We're building a nationwide fleet of Fitaco trucks, efficiently delivering healthy, fresh tacos to you on-demand, directly to your home or office. I'd love a chance to tell you more about what we're doing and the very compelling economics we have baked into the plan."
A full slide overview covering the market opportunity, the model, the team, and the economics. This is where your pitch deck earns its keep — but only after everything above has gotten you in the room.
Every great entrepreneur is nimble enough to tell that story within the confines of the time available, with the desired outcome always being to leave the audience wanting to hear more — in other words, get another meeting.
So, in your head (and on your laptop), you need to have a set of pitches that fit inside each other. Sort of like those Russian nesting dolls.