Business Pitch Research Articles

Legitimating language and emotional tone in antenarratives: A cultural entrepreneurship perspective

The concept of storytelling has gained prominence within entrepreneurship, especially as the key property underpinning the process of cultural entrepreneurship. Although it is conventionally assumed that entrepreneurial communications take the form of fully formed stories (e.g., business pitches), by relaxing this assumption, we are able to advance cultural entrepreneurship and test its boundaries. We theorize that when new ventures choose specific legitimating language to share very short story fragments (i.e., antenarratives) online, the audience is compelled to engage. Furthermore, we suggest that the effect of legitimating language on stakeholder engagement will vary based on the emotional tone conveyed in these antenarratives. To test our theory, we construct dictionaries to measure three types of legitimating language (pragmatic, moral, cognitive) and empirically analyze a large, unique dataset of new ventures from X. Results offer support for our theorizing.

Planting one thousand seeds of entrepreneurs

Research methodology This case is based on secondary information and data about the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women initiative and youth entrepreneurship programs from press releases, news articles and websites. The protagonist has been disguised. This case has been classroom-tested in a core MBA course in both face-to-face and online delivery methods. Case overview/synopsis In March 2021, Goldman Sachs launched its One Million Black Women initiative which expanded its inclusive growth goals to support Black women entrepreneurs who were under-represented and under-resourced. This initiative is one of Goldman Sachs’s sponsored programs that aid existing entrepreneurs. This program would invest $10bn over the next decade to advance racial equity, promote entrepreneurial activity and increase and economic opportunities for these highly motivated and resilient Black women. With the buzz from this initiative, Johnnetta who was a Black female manager at a financial services competitor of Goldman Sachs conceived another approach to groom and grow future generations of women of color entrepreneurs. Her idea was to implement youth entrepreneurship programs in middle schools in states with high populations of students of color. Based on a psychological theory of entrepreneurship approach, these students would learn about entrepreneurship and gain hands-on experience with starting and operating a business. The program was called “Planting 1000 Seeds of Entrepreneurs” to develop a pipeline of savvy, well-prepared future women of color entrepreneurs. Johnnetta’s dilemma was whether to pitch this new youth entrepreneurship program as an employee at her employer as a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative or start this program as an entrepreneur of a nonprofit in which she would have sole autonomy to administer this program. This case will enable students to develop ideas into a compelling business pitch while sparking debate about approaches to foster DEI initiatives that will have impactful economic benefits for women of color entrepreneurs. Complexity academic level This case is best suited for upper-level undergraduate or graduate students taking business administration courses in management, entrepreneurship, women studies or other courses that cover topics or modules related to DEI initiatives involving women in business.

Constructing Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Argumentative Structure of Early-Stage Business Pitch Problem Statements at an International Business Accelerator

Constructing Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Argumentative Structure of Early-Stage Business Pitch Problem Statements at an International Business Accelerator

Use and Function of Gestures in Persuasive Business Communication: A Contrastive Study between Spanish and English

This study sheds light on the types and frequencies of kinesic signs used in business pitches by entrepreneurs in Spanish and English, as well as the functions these nonverbal signs fulfil to contribute to the persuasiveness of their presentations. The corpus consists of 20 pitches (10 in each language) from two equivalent TV programs (the reality shows Dragons’ Den and Tu Oportunidad from the UK and Spain, respectively). A specific method of analysis previously developed by Cestero Mancera is used to identify signs in an inductive, qualitative way that allows us to apply a quantitative methodology to distinguish among the different subpopulations of the subjects studied (male and female presenters in Spanish and English presentations). The results show that facial gesturing is the most frequent type used by all presenters, although speakers of each language seem to have diverse preferences for the rest of the signs (head, hand and other body gestures). Kinesic signs apparently display the same pragmatic functions in Spanish and English, although they are more frequently used in Spanish (63.78% of the 784 signs found) than English (36.22%). Gender may be considered an influential factor when observed within the same language but not as a variable; furthermore, gender preferences are reversed when associated with language (i.e., female Spanish presentations display the most signs, while English presentations by females display the least; male presentations are in between these, there being more in Spanish than in English presentations).

Investors of the final pitch on the role of entrepreneurial mentoring and financial investment on a green startup’s business growth

Televised Business Pitches, such as Dragons' Den and Shark Tank, have gained popularity as entrepreneurs present their ideas to investors in hopes of securing funding. However, the focus of these shows is primarily on the pitching process itself. For this study, it examines the impact of these shows on its participants, specifically assessing their effectiveness in obtaining financial funding and mentoring and their influence on business growth. By analyzing the episodes and conducting semi-structured interviews with four technology startup ventures featured on the local show The Final Pitch, we collected relevant data. We utilized tables to summarize and tabulate the evidence, integrating identified themes into a cross-case report. Results reveal that The Final Pitch was effective in providing funding and mentorship opportunities for green business startups. However, the received mentoring was only a partial contributor to the businesses' longevity and growth. Meanwhile, the funding alleviated financial constraints and facilitated the realization of ideas and green business expansion. Moreover, newly emergent themes also came out such as signaling, an area that can be explored in future research. In conclusion, Televised Business Pitches offer valuable platforms to startups for acquiring financial support and mentorship.

’F---- Shark Tank:’ Rethinking the Centrality of the Business Pitch in Microenterprise Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT This project investigates how the goals of microenterprise entrepreneurs affect their use of communication genres. Although slide-based business pitches are key for traditional entrepreneurs, microenterprise entrepreneurs have little interest in investment. Therefore, acquiring customers through short elevator pitches takes this central position. This article also explores the social justice dimensions of microenterprise acceleration, finding that such organizations can provide important services in combating inequality. This project uses writing, activity, and genre research as a theoretical framework, and the research site is a microenterprise accelerator in Tacoma, Washington called Spaceworks Tacoma, which supports both lower-income and Black owners of small businesses.

Value Creation in Start-Up Discourse: Linking Pitch and Venture Through Logics of Justification

How do start-ups create value through the language of their business pitches? In this article, we investigate that question by identifying the logics of justification they use, traditionally conceptualized as orders of worth. In this study of short written pitches in a 6-month Chilean accelerator program, we describe how we detected logics of justification through pitch language, and we identify (a) co-occurrence patterns among logics of justification, (b) associations between logics of justification and industry sectors, and (c) associations between logics and a firm’s customer segment (B2B, B2C). This study provides unique insights into how start-ups sometimes justify innovations by using specific patterns of language depending on a venture’s features.

You Must Be Joking! How Humor in Business Pitches Influences Young Ventures’ Pitching Success

Startups need access to capital to grow and thrive. In this work, we present two complementary studies to examine whether and how the use of humor in business pitches influences funding success. In Study 1, we use data coded from 130 business pitches of the television show “Shark Tank”. Findings show that using humor (vs. no humor) in business pitches increased funding likelihood by up to 25%. In Study 2, we aimed to provide further insights into the role of humor in business pitches and performed an experimental study with 253 financial experts that evaluated one of three scripted and recorded business pitches. Findings showed that the use of positive (negative) humor significantly increases (decreases) funding amount. Moreover, we reveal perceived competence of the pitcher as the underlying process and find that the effects work for experienced as well as unexperienced pitchers. Taken together, this research provides new insights into how humor influences pitching success and offers important insights for entrepreneurs and investors.

Winning the opportunity to pitch: Piquing startup investors’ interest by sending the right signals in executive summaries

The first communication an entrepreneur often has with a potential investor is submitting a one-page executive summary for consideration. Subsequently, the potential investor or investment group chooses which venture ideas to further consider by inviting a pitch deck or an actual business pitch. This investment funnel is competitive and, accordingly, anything we as scholars can share with entrepreneurs seeking advice about how to optimize that initial executive summary to increase chances of getting to the pitch would be immensely valuable. Unfortunately, scant research has focused on this opportunity-introduction stage, and there is precious little we can prescribe for entrepreneurs seeking investment. To address this, we developed four executive summaries that varied only in the type of capital mentioned. We found that executive summaries that mentioned human capital more prominently were viewed as more cognitively legitimate and as deserving of a higher opportunity-recognition valuation. Put succinctly, consistent both with our theorized findings from our Open Science Framework preregistered experiment (N = 367) and with our qualitative follow-up study, we found that human capital signals have a greater positive influence on potential investors’ decisions relative to social capital, intellectual capital, and financial capital. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of this novel insight and include prescriptive recommendations for entrepreneurs.

Blood in the water: An abductive approach to startup valuation on ABC's Shark Tank

Most negotiations over startup valuation take place behind closed doors. As a result, we lack knowledge about how valuation is negotiated between entrepreneurs and investors. We constructed a dataset by hand to exploit the unique nature of a popular business pitch television show, ABC's Shark Tank, to examine this issue. Our descriptive findings suggest that entrepreneurs who initially offer less of their company to investors are more likely to receive investment offers. We also discovered that startup valuation negotiations tend to take place over the relative equity percentage each party receives rather than investment amount. Finally, although investors are more likely to experience negotiation gains, entrepreneurs who successfully pit sharks against each other receive deal terms closer to their initial ask. These results add to the emerging literature on dynamic process of startup valuation.

LINGUISTIC AND PARALINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF BUSINESS PITCHES /

Persuasive communication is the essence of a successful business. Within the scopes of business communication, business pitch, in its widest meaning, is an oral presentation of a unique concept, innovative idea, product, service with an intent to be sold to customers, get funding from potential investors, launch new collaborations, etc. The evolving culture of business pitching has become quite popular thanks to entrepreneurial investing reality shows, such as "Shark Tank", "Dragon‘s Den", etc. The analysis of pitching performances reveals that strategic use of linguistic and paralinguistic features can greatly impact the persuasion and decision-making process. The aim of the article is to highlight some of the main linguistic and paralinguistic peculiarities from mentioned famous realities.

Elevator Pitch Assessment Model: A Systematization of Dimensions in Technology Entrepreneurship Presentations

Introduction: The creation of a technology venture brings the entrepreneur to interact with different stakeholders and persuade them of the quality of the business idea. In such endeavors, entrepreneurial storytelling and business pitches are crucial to attract stakeholder interest and potential commitment. We focus on longer and structured elevator pitches used by entrepreneurs seeking funds and partners for their startup, and we present an integrative framework of evaluation dimensions, specific items, and key evidence to assess a pitch. Research methodology: We conducted a systematic review of specialized literature on business venturing, entrepreneurship, and business communication, and we selected 40 research articles from which we have extracted concepts related to the quality and effectiveness of an elevator pitch. We analyze and aggregate concepts to derive a taxonomy of evaluation dimensions. Results and discussion: We identify four dimensions of evaluation of an elevator pitch: background and contextual knowledge showed in the presentation, project content and venture information, storytelling approach and style, and entrepreneurial flow or “algorithm” of the pitch. We detail the dimensions by defining 19 evaluation items and associated key evidence to support assessment. We undertake a preliminary application of the framework with three groups: Business investors, potential entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship students. Conclusion and further research: We advance the discussion on venture storytelling and provide practitioners with a useful tool to support the evaluation of an entrepreneurial idea presented through an elevator pitch.

Introducing University Pitch Competitions: An Analysis of the First Five Years

This paper centers on the introduction and development of a business pitch competition in a medium-sized Midwest university in the United States, held from 2014-2018. First, the study analyses the evolution and development of our competition over the first five years of its implementation, detailing successes, missteps and pivot points during this time. Second, it presents a comparative study of other university competitions of varying sizes across the United States, highlighting the wide range of pitch programming design used by other institutions. Third, interviews were conducted with stakeholders from past competitions to understand further potential areas for improvement, which included student participants, community business leaders that participated as judges, and partner and university administrators. This process immediately improved the competition, and the advantages and disadvantages of the event are discussed. Lastly, a road map or best practice template is provided for other institutions to help implement their own version of a pitch competition. This template can serve as a foundation for other universities and/or organizations to implement a successful competition in a shorter timeframe.

When money isn’t everything—Exploring different patterns of entrepreneur resource acquisition

Entrepreneurs use business pitches to persuade and gain support from investors. While scholars have examined what makes business pitches successful, they have narrowly defined success as financial capital acquisition. Yet, different types of entrepreneurs (i.e., early-stage vs. late-stage entrepreneurs) need different types of resources. In a qualitative field study of social entrepreneurs, we identify social ties formation as a key outcome of the relationship between early-stage entrepreneurs and investors, one that is key to access other resources. Building on our qualitative findings and the literature on strategic ties formation, we theorize that firms use language referencing relational processes when they prioritize investor relational commitment, while they use language referencing money when they seek investor financial commitment. We test our hypotheses on a database of in person, one-to-many pitches of social entrepreneurs. We find that early-stage firms attract a broader range of investors and a higher amount of financial resources. Also, the benefits of using relational language are higher for early-stage firms who seek to acquire investor relational commitment, whereas later-stage firms using financial language can reduce their disadvantage with respect to the acquisition of financial commitment. These findings add to the literature on strategic ties formation by increasing our understandings of pitches as a proactive networking tool for less-endowed firms.

When Your Boss Says, “You Need to Sound More Professional”: Writing Style and Writer Attributions

One line of prior research has focused on the effect of style on readers’ ability to comprehend or willingness to engage with a message. A separate line has illuminated the effect of errors on the impressions readers form about writers, identifying potentially serious consequences (e.g., the willingness to accept the writer as a coworker or to fund the writer’s business pitch). To date, few studies have investigated the effect of style on the impressions readers form of business writers. In this paper, we report a study of the relationship between business writer attributions and word- or sentence-level style features often emphasized by advocates of plain style. Using data from 614 respondents, we found statistically significant evidence that business writers conveyed (a) confidence by avoiding non-requisite words, jargon, and nominals and by using standard connotations and grammar, and (b) professionalism by avoiding non-requisite words and hedges and by using standard homonyms.

Can you teach research in 10 minutes? Embedding information literacy micro-sessions in module programmes

This case study discusses the inception and continued delivery of 10-minute micro research skills sessions within two entrepreneurship modules at Coventry University London. The case study starts with an explanation of how and why the project was developed. Its rationale was underpinned by both established, current bite-sized learning research, and established psychological and neural evidence. This paper describes how these practices are used in the workplace to promote continuous professional development and disseminate company information for training purposes. Discussing both the delivery and skills content, this paper explains the methods used by the Information and Skills Development Specialist (ISDS) in each 10-minute session to engage students and embed database searching skills in to their routine study practices. It also explains how this practice has been adopted by students and how the skills have been embedded to enhance their final business pitches at the end of their modules.

A Librarian’s Approach to Teaching the Business Pitch

A Librarian’s Approach to Teaching the Business Pitch

Hidden treasures: Marca Perú (PeruTM) and the recoding of neoliberal indigeneity in the Andes

ABSTRACT Since 2011, the Peruvian national branding scheme – Marca Perú, or ‘PeruTM’ – has oriented development projects that cultivate a thriving entrepreneurship rooted in ethnoracial difference throughout the country. In Andean Peru’s Colca Valley, project staff announce these interventions in dramatic public events where rural villagers are revealed as newly minted indigenous entrepreneurs. This article offers a close reading of three tableaus in which neoliberal development projects display their success at cultivating inclusive indigenous entrepreneurship: a visit from Peru’s tourism minister; an indigenous business pitch competition; and a microfinance bank’s traditionally adorned parade float. Through public dramas in which rural villagers are exposed as newly neoliberal ethnoracial subjects, I argue, development projects discursively enact their investments as successful, while facilitating the state’s abandonment of the region as a salutary hand-off of responsibility. However, villagers required to perform in these dramas resisted that departure; I argue that their resistance sought to entangle neoliberal programs in decidedly non-neoliberal obligations. Villagers worked to resist state ‘forgetting’ by engaging a variation on James Scott’s ‘hidden transcripts’ that I call ‘hidden enactments,’ or subtle tactical moves including the use of traditional adornments, abundant gift-giving, and overly enthusiastic participation that obligated development project staff to reciprocate.

It’s everybody’s business, Period

Supplementary materials A pitch deck for Girlythings has been provided as a supplementary material for this case. Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes Learning outcomes In the light of the case and the accompanying case questions, the students should understand the following: socio-cultural perspectives in adopting the use of taboo products in an emerging economy and a conservative society such as Pakistan; role of government and non-governmental agencies in influencing policy framework; the application of the theory of planned behavior in channeling positive attitudes toward the use of personal hygiene products; peculiarities of formulating an expansion strategy for entrepreneurial ventures; and idiosyncrasies of developing effective business pitches. Case overview/synopsis Founded in early 2018, Girlythings was a young startup spearheaded by Tanzila Khan. It aimed at not only improving the availability of sanitary products in the emerging Pakistan market but, over and above, also removing the stigma attached to the topic of menstruation in the society. While the startup was still nestled at an incubation center, the protagonist faced the utmost challenge of deciding the fate of the venture due to the taboo nature of the product. This case is a rich description of the stigma that prevails on the topic of women health in conservative societies like Pakistan. It will help students appreciate the idiosyncrasies of operating in emerging markets and spearheading ventures that deal with sensitive issues. Complexity academic level This case is geared toward undergraduate students enrolled in courses of strategy, strategic marketing and entrepreneurship. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

The interaction between rational arguments and emotional appeals in the entrepreneurial pitch

PurposeThis study is concerned with the perlocutionary force of emotional strategies in entrepreneurship discourse. The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent, and under what circumstances, emotional appeals may be effective to convince the conversational partner in entrepreneurship discourse.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the interaction between rational and emotional appeals this paper analyses a corpus formed by several examples of the “elevator pitch” genre, which have been taken from a TV programme called Tu Oportunidad (Your Chance), the Spanish counterpart of the British Dragon’s Den and the American Shark Tank. Using the information gathered in the discursive analysis of the corpus, the paper establishes a template that identifies the main rational and emotional aspects that characterize the entrepreneurial pitch. In a second stage of the research, the template is used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the persuasive influence of rational and emotional aspects.FindingsThe results of the qualitative and quantitative research show that there is a clear correlation between the propensity to finance entrepreneurial ventures and the presence of rational aspects in the entrepreneurial pitch. The lack of rational arguments determines the failure of the entrepreneur’s efforts to be persuasive, regardless of the emotional appeals that are introduced into the pitch. Emotional appeals prove to be useful to reinforce rational arguments but they are not sufficiently persuasive on their own.Originality/valueThe paper offers insight into the criteria that investors take into account in order to evaluate entrepreneurial projects, as well as on the strategies that entrepreneurs should develop to build a successful business pitch.