It wasn’t the most polished. It wasn’t the loudest. But it was the one that made someone lean in. Why, because it solved something real.
It wasn’t the slickest. But it was clear, human, and finally made someone lean in.
I’ve given a lot of pitches.
Some were sharp. Some were rushed. Some had slides I was still editing the night before.
But the one that worked?
It wasn’t the one with the most polish.
However, it was the one where I stopped trying to sound impressive, and finally made it real.
Early on, I thought pitching meant showing off
You want to prove you belong.
As a founder you want to show you’ve done the work.
So you bring out your biggest charts, biggest market numbers, and most optimistic projections.
I did that. A lot.
And usually, I’d leave those meetings with a polite smile and a soft no.
At the time, I thought maybe they just didn’t “get it.”
But now I realise I wasn’t helping them get anything at all.
What changed everything
There was one pitch, a small one, with a single investor. This was the one that finally shifted how I saw it.
We had been working on a tool that solved a surprisingly common operational problem. It wasn’t exciting in a tech headline kind of way. But I knew it mattered, because I had felt the pain myself in a past role.
I didn’t open with our product. I didn’t start with the market.
I started with a person.
A teammate I had worked with, years back.
She was smart, efficient, and constantly frustrated.
She was wasting hours every week on a broken, manual process that no one had time to fix.
I described her job. What slowed her down. How it impacted her team.
Then I said, plainly: this is what we’re solving. And here’s how.
The response was different right away
The investor didn’t interrupt. He didn’t nod a lot. He just listened.
Then he asked real questions. About the person. The process. The decision-making.
No buzzwords. No “what’s your valuation.”
Just curiosity.
Because finally, the problem was real.
The pitch wasn’t abstract. It wasn’t hypothetical. It made sense.
The biggest mistake I made before that
I used to try to make everything sound big.
I’d talk about the “future state” and how we’d “unlock scale.”
But I was skipping the part that mattered most.
The pain.
If you can’t describe the pain. You need to say it clearly, specifically, and in a way that someone can picture. If not the solution doesn’t land.
And if the solution doesn’t land, the rest of your pitch just becomes background noise.
What made the difference
That pitch wasn’t perfect.
We were still early. We hadn’t figured everything out.
But it was honest.
We talked about what we didn’t know.
What we were still testing.
Why we were excited about what we were seeing so far.
And it all made sense because the problem had a face.
It wasn’t just “the market.” It was someone. A person. With a real job and a real headache.
What I tell founders now
If your pitch is not landing, look closer at what you’re trying to solve.
Can you describe the pain? Can you show me someone who lives with it?
Because the best early-stage pitches don’t sound like investor roadshows.
They sound like someone who’s seen a real problem and can’t stop thinking about how to fix it.
Start there.
Skip the jargon. Skip the inflated TAM slide.
Give me a reason to care.
That’s the pitch that works.
The right pitch builds trust
And trust is everything.
It’s not just about getting the money.
It’s about getting a partner who actually understands what you’re doing — and why.
When you’re early, people are betting on your thinking.
If your thinking is clear, your pitch will be too.
Need help shaping your pitch?
I work with early-stage founders to turn raw ideas into clear, confident decks that connect with the right kind of investors.
Let’s make sure your pitch is more than just noise. Let’s make it real. Get in touch.