The Best3Minutes guide to creating your winning one minute pitch

David Beckett

Pitch Coach

You’ve got a one minute pitch coming up! That is a challenge, right? How much can you actually tell in only one minute? How do you get their attention, and how do you structure your pitch?

I’ve coached over 2200 startups to pitch for investment – and many to give a one minute pitch. Seven of my teams have won category awards at the Accenture Innovation Awards with their 60-second story – so the tools described here really work!

You’ll find some recommendations, and an audio recording of me saying the text.

Note: the content suggestions are recommendations! You don’t have to cover all five of the topics mentioned here – what matters is having a solid plan, and telling YOUR story – in the words you feel comfortable with. This guide will help you find that story.

Essentials: Pain, Product, Progress. Ideally included: Team, Why You.

Good luck with your one minute pitch!

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“What’s the goal of my 1-minute pitch?”

Is the goal to try to tell the details? To convince them about your product and your technology?

Well, there’s just not enough time to do that.

If you only focus on the product, they probably won’t understand much anyway – and you’ll most likely lose them along the way.

Let’s face it – a time limit of one minute was set for a reason. Headlines and essentials are what they’re looking for.

That means the goal is – get the audience excited about what you have to offer, so that they want to connect with you after the pitch.

Then you can get into a conversation, and they can find out more details about what you’re working on.

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“How many words can I say in 1 minute?”

… and remain understandable? Note the second part of that sentence – remain understandable!

OK, let me help you. Set your stopwatch on your phone, and time how long it takes to say the following sentence? “How many words can you say in one minute and remain understandable?”

That’s twelve words – and usually it takes a person about five seconds to say it.

The research shows humans can listen at around 150 words/min max. So the ideal would be to speak at around 130-140 words per minute.

That’s enough speed for there to be something happening – some energy in the pitch.

But there’s also enough air to give emphasis to the key messages.

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“OK, but how many sentences can I say in 1 minute?”

I find it helpful to take this one step further and define how many sentences that is.

You can say around 9 sentences in the time given – and notice, those are short sentences.

It’s good to keep sentences short when writing – and especially when speaking. Why? because readers find it difficult to connect the beginning of a long sentence to the end of long sentence.

That means short sentences are easier for the audience. And that means your pitch will be easier to understand.

When you think about how many sentences you can say – around 9 – it also means you can allocate a certain number of sentences per topic across the pitch.

It sounds a bit technical – but I’ll make it clear as we go through the pitch.

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“So… what should I talk about?”
Pt. 1
The Pain

First – what’s the problem you’re solving? You can think of this as the Why of the product – the reason you built this in the first place. How big is the problem? What’s changed that means people are losing time and money, and how much time or money is it costing, what level of frustration is kicking in for customers? Or what’s the impact on the environment, or on animals?

Now – note – if you are in deeptech, there tends to be a different approach this. Often you ARE developing a technology that will solve a problem in the future but that might not even exist today. In that case, you could talk about the trend you are capitalizing on.

An example – the Metaverse is a hot topic now, but for this to truly evolve into a mass-accepted platform, computational power has to evolve exponentially in the coming decade. Perhaps you are working on an aspect of that development – so instead of talking only about the tech, explain the need and chnage in a couple of sentences, and then tell about what you are doing to use technology to address this need.

How many sentences? 2-4, depending on how well known the problem is. It’s so important that your audience understands the problem you’re solving or trend you’re addressing, that it could take up to four of your precious available sentences.

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“So… what should I talk about?”
Pt. 2
The Product

Next, we want to talk about the product, and even the technology.

Yes! That’s the bit that we love telling about!

But the challenge is – you might only have two or three sentences to explain it.

So we need to keep it short. Ask yourself – if I could only tell three things about the product or developing technology, what would I tell?

Then challenge yourself further – if I can only tell one sentence per item, what three sentences will I tell?

There’s no short cut to this. It’s hard to reduce your product explanation to three sentences! But that’s the task in a one minute pitch.

How many sentences? – 3 maximum.

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“So… what should I talk about?”
Pt. 3
Your Progress

Follow this with one or two sentences about your progress. What stage are you at?

If you are already selling, tell something about your traction. How many users do you have? Is there a metric of growth you can share – for example, ‘we’ve grown at over ten percent every month for the last 6 months’ – or – ‘our revenue has doubled every year for the last three years.’

Alternatively have you won a prestigious award or innovation competition? That can position you as valued in the eyes of your audience.

Or have you gained a recognizable customer? ‘We’ve just reached a deal with company X, our third launching customer’.

And if you are early stage, deeptech, or in life sciences for example – talk about something to do with your validation. What can you tell that will convince the audience that there is a market waiting for your solution to be delivered?

How many sentences? – 1-2 maximum.

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“So… what should I talk about?”
Pt. 4
The Team

The fourth thing you can talk about is the Team. If you ask anyone in the startup or tech world – What’s the most important thing in a startup? They will all say – Team!

What’s the thing about your team that stands out? Once again, time is limited – you have no space to tell about each person, – their background, what they studied and the fact that their interesting hobby is wresting pigeons.

In the end, you’ll have one or two sentences maximum to share something of value. So what is that one thing that people will remember about your team?

Is it complimentary skills? Example: “We have a team with science, tech and commercial skills to grow this business.”

Or do you have a shared purpose? Example: “We all came away from COP27 with a mission to solve this part of the climate crisis.”

Have you known each other for years, and are working together on this as long standing partners – personally or professionally?

One founder I coached said; “I’ve known my co-founder for twenty five years – and I’m only twenty seven – so that’s a big part of my life!” It made the audience smile, and delivered a key message. “When things go wrong, we stick together.”

Or have you got past Startup experience? For example: “One of our founders Jill has had a successful exit – and Tom failed in his previous startup. We believe both experiences have massive value for us as a team.”

The goal is that the audience remember one big thing about your team – something that leaves them with the feeling that there are a group of people behind this that can make it great!

How many sentences? 1-2 maximum.

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“So… what should I talk about?”
Pt. 5
Why You?

The last bit of content you can think about telling is – WHY YOU!

What’s your personal motivation for doing this? Why did you get into this business in the first place? Why does it matter to you to solve this problem?

Everybody I’ve ever spoken to who listens to pitches tells me the same thing. They want to see the passion and commitment in the eyes of the pitcher!

Of course, they all need to hear the rational stuff – the problem you’re solving, the solution you’ve created, success stories, and so on.

But if you want them to come on board and support you, or invest in your idea, your pitch needs to connect with them in the head AND heart.

I made a video about this topic, called Putting Passion into your Pitch – check it out here. https://youtu.be/FxzaPED-O3A

In short – don’t underestimate how important your personal enthusiasm for the project really is. Show it with a sentence or two about your motivation, or what you love about your product or technology – and show it in the way you tell it.

How many sentences? 1-2 maximum.

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“To begin with… and finally…” Prepare the Opening and Close!”

Finally – prepare the opening and the close!

Make sure you’ve got a plan from the first word, the first sentence. Don’t waste time by saying something like –

Well, I guess it’s our turn now, so, well, thanks for inviting us, and thanks to the organisers for arranging such a great event, and it’s lovely to be here in this great location…. 

That’s already 34 words – around 13 seconds lost!

Have a plan for the first word – make a bold statement, or give them a statistic about the size of the problem, or a future trend. Tell them why you want to solve this problem, or one big thing about the team and why you as a group are committed to this mission.

And finally – have a plan to the last full stop. Don’t finish with a lame, “Well, I guess I’m finished, so… do you have any questions…? “

Close with a clear statement of intent, or your personal message, with a simple call to action – and big fat ‘Thank you!” An example – “We’re cutting the emissions of the snack industry by half – come and join us. Thank you!’”

Those last two words are a small but important part of closing things off. It gives a beginning, middle – and END to the story when you finish with Thank You!

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“Oh…
one last thing…” Practice out loud!

When you’ve got the story clear and are preparing yourself for the pitch, make sure you practice by saying the pitch out loud.

Often people practice in their head, and when they start to pitch, they’re surprised it doesn’t sound as good as it did in their mind!

Say it out loud to yourself a few times – this will help you find out if you have technical language, or if you have more direct, pitching language.

Look out for phrases like ‘high level strategic plan” – replace it with, “we’ve got a brilliant plan.”

Or if you find yourself writing “multi-disciplinary team”, change it to ‘a team with all the skills needed.”

And this process of saying iot out loud will help you feel more comfortable and certain of your story.

The more you verbalise your pitch, the better it will be!