Hot Seat

Chapter 14. Pitching Twitter; Pitching Hoverboards

The pyramid pitch provides a great framework for your verbal pitch, and the standard deck gives you a proven framework to build your slides. But there are two very special types of startups that you should know about: the Twitter startup and the Hoverboard startup. If you’re one of these and don’t know it, you’re going to screw up your pitch.

Imagine walking in to hear a startup pitch its goods. The CEO gets on stage, clears her throat, and starts talking about the number of teenagers in Western countries, and their per capita disposable income. As she drones on about trend cycles and market prediction, you glance at the company summary and it says “Foot-propelled play device with gravitational repulsion field for friction minimization,” and you realize that she’s trying to pitch you a hoverboard.

You’re thinking about Marty McFly skimming across a lake, and the slide she’s on is giving a five-year revenue projection for the app store monetization model.

You seriously don’t care about the CEO’s viral strategy or exit strategy; you just want to know if she’s invented the secret of levitation. If she has, you’re pretty sure the rest will follow. If not, then... well, then you’re going to have some stiff words with the “friend” who suggested you meet. A Hoverboard startup is one where the problem is screamingly obvious, but the solution is prohibitively hard. The only real question for a Hoverboard startup ...