How to pitch a brilliant idea.
Coming up with creative ideas is easy; selling them to strangers is hard. Entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers often go to great lengths to demonstrate how their new concepts are practical and profitable--only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don't seem to understand the value of the ideas. Why does this happen? Having studied Hollywood executives who assess screenplay pitches, the author says the person on the receiving end--the "catcher"--tends to gauge the pitcher's creativity as well as the proposal itself. An impression of the pitcher's ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow the catcher's feelings about an idea's worth. To determine whether these observations apply to business settings beyond Hollywood, the author attended product design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging new ideas. The results in those environments were similar to her observations in Hollywood, she says. Catchers subconsciously categorize successful pitchers as showrunners (smooth and professional), artists (quirky and unpolished), or neophytes (inexperienced and naive). The research also reveals that catchers tend to respond well when they believe they are participating in an idea's development. As Oscar-winning writer, director, and producer Oliver Stone puts it, screen-writers pitching an idea should "pull back and project what he needs onto your idea in order to make the story whole for him." To become a successful pitcher, portray yourself as one of the three creative types and engage your catchers in the creative process. By finding ways to give your catchers a chance to shine, you sell yourself as a likable collaborator.
- Research Article
5
- 10.1016/j.hcl.2014.04.004
- Jun 6, 2014
- Hand Clinics
Bench to Bedside: Integrating Advances in Basic Science into Daily Clinical Practice
- Research Article
11
- 10.1109/tpc.2020.3029673
- Nov 6, 2020
- IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Background: After a six-month training program in the Chilean public accelerator Start-Up Chile, entrepreneurs are asked to update a short pitch they wrote in the submission stage to appear in the program's online portfolio. Literature review: We reviewed relevant literature related to the pitch as well as research aiming to track changes within pitches. Research questions: 1. Which are the editing strategies used to change their pitch? 2. Do these strategies conform to specific discursive patterns? Research methodology: To answer the research questions, we designed an exploratory qualitative study to describe in depth the editing strategies used by two generations of startups, corresponding to 148 pairs of written pitches. In order to contextualize the results, we conducted two interviews with the program managers and analyzed the accelerator's official Playbook and Technical and Administrative Requirements. Results: We identified 10 editing strategies. Of those editing strategies, “Deleting technical descriptions” is by far the most common procedure. The identified patterns can be classified into two groups, those simplifying, hedging, and focusing on certain elements of the first pitch, and those adding and specifying information of the first version. Conclusions: We conclude by discussing the strengths of this methodological approach for understanding such edits and for supporting successful edits in accelerator programs, as well as the potential for better understanding entrepreneur coachability.
- Research Article
19
- 10.4067/s0718-27242020000100055
- May 1, 2020
- Journal of technology management & innovation
The growing importance of entrepreneurship and innovation for economic growth has propitiated a discursive genre that nowadays is almost omnipresent, i.e., the pitch. As with other emerging genres used in professional settings (e.g., selling presentations, business plans, etc.), several instructional discourses regarding the pitch have come out in the form of manuals and courses offering training on “how to make a pitch more powerful”. Empirical research, however, is less common. The aim of this paper is to qualitatively review and sort out the existing empirical research on the pitch. For this, three classifying categories are proposed according to its reception (mainly by investors), the focus on discursive features, and its evolution. Finally, some critiques to the empirical research on the pitch and a description of some future trends on the field are provided. This work may be useful for professionals interested in innovation and entrepreneurship, areas in which this emerging discourse broadly circulates.
- Conference Article
5
- 10.1115/detc2020-22701
- Aug 17, 2020
Abstract Innovative design and technology startups often struggle to gain market success when launching a new product. Research in business management highlights the impact of strategic marketing to foster launch success. Prototyping plays a critical role in demonstrating the potential of the said new technologies and innovations into the market. Prototypes can engage users or highlight the potential of an opportunity to investors. The design performance impact of prototyping strategies has been evaluated in recent studies. This work explores the impact that strategic prototyping (defined here as the use of techniques such as: subsystem isolation, or scale modeling), has on market outcome. Pilot analysis of two hundred launch campaigns on the marketing and sales platform - Kickstarter.com, is conducted. This database provides clear documentation of the information that is provided to said investors or ‘backers’, and resulting funds received. The relative usage frequency of various strategies is reported from a subset of product launch efforts after which the correlations between the demonstration of the strategies and funding received is calculated. These preliminary observations may support designers in managing project resources while developing prototypes to launch new products.
- Research Article
1461
- 10.5465/amr.2009.40633190
- Jul 1, 2009
- Academy of Management Review
Entrepreneurial passion plays an important role in entrepreneurship, but theoretical understanding of what it is and what it does is lacking. We build on fragmented and disparate extant work to conceptualize the nature of entrepreneurial passion associated with salient entrepreneurial role identities. We also theorize the mechanisms of the experience of entrepreneurial passion that provide coherence to goal-directed cognitions and behaviors during the pursuit of entrepreneurial effectiveness.
- Research Article
11
- 10.1111/jnu.12289
- Apr 19, 2017
- Journal of Nursing Scholarship
To present four case scenarios reflecting the process of research career development using career cartography. Career cartography is a novel approach that enables nurses, from all clinical and academic settings, to actively engage in a process that maximizes their clinical, teaching, research, and policy contributions that can improve patient outcomes and the health of the public. Four early-career nurse researchers applied the career cartography framework to describe their iterative process of research career development. They report the development process of each of the components of career cartography, including destination statement, career map, and policy statement. Despite diverse research interests and career mapping approaches, common experiences emerged from the four nurse researchers. Common lessons learned throughout the career cartography process include: (a) have a supportive mentorship team, (b) start early and reflect regularly, (c) be brief and to the point, (d) keep it simple and avoid jargon, (e) be open to change, (f) make time, and (g) focus on the overall career destination. These four case scenarios support the need for nurse researchers to develop their individual career cartography. Regardless of their background, career cartography can help nurse researchers articulate their meaningful contributions to science, policy, and health of the public.
- Research Article
- 10.21427/d7bf7f
- Jul 5, 2017
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Exploration of a Crowdfunding Entrepreneurial Pitch.
- Research Article
- 10.17863/cam.71100
- Jun 4, 2021
- Harvard Business Review
- Research Article
- 10.5167/uzh-199113
- Dec 22, 2020
- Harvard Business Review
- Research Article
- 10.5167/uzh-199116
- Aug 24, 2020
- Harvard Business Review
- Research Article
16
- Jul 9, 2019
- Harvard business review
- Research Article
16
- Oct 6, 2017
- Harvard Business Review
- Research Article
24
- Aug 23, 2017
- Harvard Business Review
- Research Article
22
- Aug 23, 2017
- Harvard business review
- Research Article
25
- Jan 17, 2017
- Harvard business review
- Research Article
26
- Jun 1, 2016
- Harvard business review
- Research Article
5
- Jun 1, 2016
- Harvard business review
- Ask R Discovery
- Chat PDF
AI summaries and top papers from 250M+ research sources.