TOM PITCHThe One Minute
Free · read this before you rehearse

What the room
is really asking

The clothes you wear and how eloquently you talk don't decide it. A great idea can come from anywhere, and anyone can make the words count. An angel, a venture fund and your own family each listen for something different, yet most pitch advice is written as if they were the same person. This page is what TOM knows about each room: the question underneath, what gets you eliminated, and what to lead with. Pick your room on the other side and TOM weighs your pitch accordingly.

Two things the evidence actually supports

Investors eliminate before they weigh

In a study of 150 televised pitches and 750 investor interactions, every pitch carrying one fatal flaw was rejected (134 out of 134) and every pitch without one advanced. Investors don't add your strengths up. They look for the one thing that lets them stop listening.

So TOM checks the gate first. You're out before anyone weighs anything if there's no clear claim, no evidence for that claim, no ask where the room expects one, or no reason why you're the one to do it. In the longer rooms, leaving out the alternative rules you out too; in The Office, TOM checks whether you name it and counts it toward your score. TOM tells you before it shows you a score. The five screen-outs, one by one.

Maxwell, Jeffrey & Lévesque, Journal of Business Venturing 26(2), 2011.

Practise the questions as well as the pitch

Across 1,857 investor questions to 189 startups, founders asked “how will you win?” raised about seven times more than founders asked “how will you not lose?”, for the same companies, framed differently. The founders who did best took a defensive question and answered it with the upside. In a controlled experiment that alone doubled the money offered.

So practise the answers as well as the minute. When the question is about risk, downside or what could go wrong, answer first with where you're taking the company, and then with how you reduce the risk. If you only talk about reducing the risk, it can sound as if you're backing away.

Kanze, Huang, Conley & Higgins, Academy of Management Journal 61(2), 2018.

Who you might be pitching to

We've left out the names of specific funds and programmes. What follows is where their published criteria, their partners’ own writing and the research agree.

Angel investor

“Is this person clear inside ten seconds, and do I believe they will not quit?”
They eliminate on“We have no competitors.” Numbers that do not agree with each other. A founder who sounds like a passenger in their own company. Lead withOne sentence anyone could repeat. Why you chose this problem and what it has already cost you to stay with it. A hook in the first ten to thirty seconds, because they take clarity as a sign of competence. What TOM weighs upThe first five seconds, one claim, the concrete image, length.

Evidence: strong. Angel-group guidance and accelerator partner writing converge; the disqualification study above was run on angels.

Venture capital

“Is the insight crisp, is the customer claim checkable, and is this a fund-returner?”
They eliminate onA market size with no calculation behind it. “AI-powered” with nothing specific after it. Buzzwords where the insight should be. Traction that turns out to be a pipeline. Lead withThe one thing you know that the market has not priced in. A customer claim they could check by picking up the phone. Market reasoning that's roughly right, rather than a precise number that was made up. The business model, because investors spend more time on that slide than any other. What TOM weighs upEvidence, survivability, claim hygiene, one claim.

Evidence: strong. Partner essays, deck-reading data and the rubric-grounding study all point the same way.

Private equity

“Can I underwrite this cash flow, and does the business run without the founder?”
They eliminate onVenture vocabulary such as total addressable market, hockey stick, burn, runway and “pre-revenue but”. A business that is you. One customer over thirty percent of revenue. Add-backs nobody documented. Lead withWhat the business is, then what it earns and where earnings are heading. Why you are selling now and what you personally want: cash, a stake or a role. Depth of the team beyond you. A path to value and an exit they can picture. What TOM weighs upEvidence and claim hygiene above everything; audience fit; the ask.

Evidence: medium. Mostly advisor-side and broker-side writing, consistent across sources, little peer-reviewed work.

Corporate or strategic

“Which business unit’s problem is this, in our numbers, and who owns the budget?”
They eliminate onNo sponsor with a budget. A free proof-of-concept, since most never convert. “We will build whatever you need.” Not knowing what you replace among their existing suppliers. Lead withOne business unit’s problem stated in their P&L language: what it sells more of, or saves. How you differ from the supplier they already have. Integration measured in days. A paid pilot with acceptance criteria and a named budget owner. Who owns the intellectual property and who owns the customer, agreed up front. What TOM weighs upAudience fit and the ask above everything; survivability; the last five seconds.

Evidence: strong. Corporate venturing practitioners publish their conversion data, and it is unflattering.

Family office

“Does this fit how we made our money, who sent you, and where is my downside?”
They eliminate onA cold approach, which tells them you don't know how this world works. A seventy-page deck. Ignoring how the family made its wealth. Leading with a return figure. Sounding like the venture fund said no first. Lead withWho introduced you and why they thought of this family. The fit with what the family already understands. The downside first, and how their expertise reduces it. A lean ask. If you need six, don't raise ten. Realistic liquidity, and governance they will actually get: information rights, a seat, control kept where it belongs. What TOM weighs upAudience fit, claim hygiene, evidence, survivability. Length barely matters; they are patient.

Evidence: thin. Industry reports and family-office advisors, consistent but not studied.

Friends and family

“Do I understand I can lose all of this, and do I trust you anyway?”
They eliminate onThey rarely say no, which is the risk. A casual promise can turn into an expectation you can't meet, and the cost shows up years later at a family dinner. Lead withThe worst case, first: “only what you can afford to lose.” Whether this is a gift, a loan or an investment, in writing. How long the money is locked up, and be honest that it's years. What the money does. When they will hear from you, and then keep to it. What TOM weighs upClaim hygiene and the ask above everything; survivability; the last five seconds. Evidence matters least here, because they're backing you more than the numbers.

Evidence: this room is documented from the founder’s and the lawyer’s side, which is the side that gets hurt.

What TOM will not tell you, and why

It doesn't count your ums

Many speaking tools do, because filler words are easy to count. We have found no study showing that they cost anyone money. TOM does not score a metric it cannot cite. If you're saying “um” a lot, it usually means you're under-rehearsed. Rehearse until the next sentence comes without reaching for it.

It doesn't score your face, your voice or your confidence

We left these out on purpose. The research on eye contact and body language points the wrong way, and the measurements are less accurate for some speakers than others. TOM reads what you said. Delivery is compared only to your own previous attempt, never to anyone else.

It doesn't reward passion

Displayed passion predicts money in crowdfunding. In front of professional investors it does not; perceived preparedness does, and enthusiasm with little behind it can come across as a sales act. TOM calls that gap the polish penalty, and it tells you when a smooth performance is carrying a claim that can't bear the weight.

Ten habits that survive every room
  1. Say what it is in one sentence a stranger could repeat. If they can't repeat it, it didn't land.
  2. Make one claim and hold it the whole way through. Describe three companies in one breath and they'll remember none of them.
  3. Give the listener one thing to picture, and come back to it. An image you use once is easily forgotten.
  4. Where you'd reach for an adjective, use something specific the listener could check.
  5. Leave out anything that wouldn't survive a quick check. One claim like that makes the listener doubt the rest.
  6. Name the alternative, whether that's a rival, the status quo or doing nothing. “No competitors” tells them you haven't looked.
  7. Say why you, of all people. Leave the résumé out and give them the specific thing that makes this yours.
  8. If the room permits an ask, make one, and make it a range you can defend rather than a point.
  9. Finish before they're ready for you to stop, and use the last few seconds to invite their next question.
  10. Rehearse aloud one full run for every minute you will speak. Under-rehearsal is the delivery fault the sources agree on most.
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