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- ♞ Defining your category
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What does your pitch need to accomplish?
Most founders spend weeks obsessing over their "Competitor Matrix" slide. They map out every feature, every pricing tier, and every minor weakness of their rivals. They walk into the room ready to prove why they are 10% faster or 20% cheaper.
And then, the investor doesn't even bring up the competition.
Instead, they ask about market velocity, customer psychology, and "Why now?"
The disconnect is simple: You are playing a game of differentiation. They are playing a game of allocation.
If your pitch is focused on differentiation, then you are playing a losing game.
The Opportunity Cost
When an investor looks at your deck, their Logical Brain isn't comparing you to "Startup X" in your niche. It’s comparing you to every other possible use of their capital.
Their internal monologue isn't "Is this better than Competitor Y?" It’s:
"Is this better than the AI deal I saw this morning?"
"Is this safer than keeping my cash in a late-stage fund?"
"Does this have a higher ceiling than the 50 other founders in my inbox?"
This is the Comparison Trap. If you allow an investor to passively categorize you, you’ve already lost control of the narrative.
The Real Battle
Within the first three minutes of your pitch, an investor’s Survival Brain is trying to find a shortcut to understand you. They want to put you in a box:
"Oh, it's a standard marketplace."
"It’s another SaaS tool for HR."
"It’s a 'Uber for X' play."
The moment you are placed in a box, you are judged by that box's benchmarks. If you're "just another marketplace," they apply marketplace CAC/LTV expectations to you. If your metrics don't perfectly match that pre-defined box, you’re dismissed—not because your business is bad, but because you're being measured against the wrong yardstick.
Focus on Building Your Own Box
The highest-status founders don't fight for a better position inside an existing box. They build their own box.
They don't lead with features; they control:
The Problem Frame: Why the old way of looking at the market is fundamentally broken.
The Temporal Urgency: Why the specific conditions of this year make your solution inevitable.
The Capital Logic: Why putting a dollar into this specific engine produces a return that no other category can match.
Don't use buzzwords to hide your business. Use precision to define it.
When you define the category, you define the rules of the game. You stop being a "choice" among competitors and start becoming an "imperative" for the fund.
Are you looking to fundraise? Here is how I can help:
📱 Book a Strategy Call to get 1:1 feedback on your pitch, pitch deck and/or fundraising strategy.
Onwards and Upwards,
