Whether you’re presenting to a potential investor or explaining your idea to a captive audience, you are inevitably performing 1 of only 4 different types of pitches. Details on each of these types are laid out below:
1. Traction
Traction is the most leveraged form of presentation. With enough traction comes hype, innate success, and the potential that the investors in the room actually found you. This means the deal could be up to you, and this is quite the powerful position to be in within the venture capital world.
Traction, in essence, means you’ve already hit your stride. Customer adoption is increasing steadily, your revenue models are being carved out, and user feedback suggests that you have a feasible roadmap to work toward. This success usually comes with enough media attention to make your startup a recognized name.
Traction pitchers are usually able to hang their hats on the data itself. Adoption rate and revenue growth tend to speak for themselves when in a room full of money-hungry investors.
2. Technology
So you’ve built something amazing. This means you’re going to let the tool/product/platform speak for itself.
These pitches quickly turn more into demos. The value proposition is that the technology solves a problem and works as intended. This means the company usually doesn’t have much traction nor do they even have a revenue model yet. In fact, they may not even have any customers (since they may have not even launched yet).
Technology pitches have to be very impressive. The technology truly needs to be something that only a few people in the world could build. Needless to say, this takes exceptional engineering work.
3. Team
When you’re a successful serial entrepreneur, you make a name for yourself. Team pitches rely on that notion by flaunting the experience and reputation of the people behind the idea.
Team pitches may be presented much earlier on in the development process. If the team is impressive enough, these pitches can really only focus on a problem or concept and nothing else yet. This is because investors will easily be swayed to trust the team’s track record in bringing the concept to fruition.
In all honesty, the best entrepreneurs won’t even have to present formal pitches. Whenever they have a new idea, they often already have the network and rolodex that brings investors to their door before they take any action at all.
4. Vision
In my experience, vision pitches are the most commonly presented type of pitch these days. In a nutshell, vision pitches are the most superficial way to realize an idea.
It’s a founder (or founders) putting together data, fabricating numbers (based on some form of research), and attempting to convince investors to see the world the way they do.
For vision pitches, the problem being solved needs to be monumental. Vision pitches must truly be poised to change the world in order to be taken seriously. Without a prototype (technology), a reputable founder (team), or any sort of market exposure (traction), the odds are stacked against this type of pitch.