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Sam Altman’s Mindset For Pitching
Read time 2.0 minutes.
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI and former President of Y-Combinator.
Recently, I’ve been reading his blog, which has some great insights for founders. I’ve shared many on Twitter but I wanted to save one specifically for my newsletter subscribers.
Give someone enough rope, and they will hang themselves.
This is a quote I feature when coaching clients. It’s a mindset that I believe everyone should adopt when preparing their pitch, pitch deck or attention deck.
Most founders have the misconception that they need to shove as much information as possible into an investor’s face because each piece of information stacks up till you pass a bar where they will decide to take a meeting.
The truth is that the opposite could not be more accurate. One thing that was interesting when reading Sam’s blogs is his focus on simplicity; he believes that if the core of your company is robust additional information isn’t needed. That additional information is only shared when covering a flaw in the company’s core.
I agree.
Your problem, solution, traction, team and market should be enough to get you a meeting. You shouldn’t need more than that. And each of those should be explained as simply as possible.
I get worried when I see 50+ page pitch decks (more common than you think). If you can’t explain the company in 8-12 slides, how will you get customers to buy in 1-2 clicks?
Overview
I want you to have this mindset in everything you do in life. The easiest way to tell if someone is lying is if they go into too much detail about the lie. We all know this: when you are sick, you call into work and say you are sick. When you fake calling in sick, you explain everything wrong with you and hope they buy it. In life, if you have the goods, then don’t sugarcoat them; let them speak for themselves. This philosophy applies to how you pitch but also how you live your life. Don’t cover a rotten core with pretty things. Focus on building a solid core; the rest is noise.
Can you pitch your company in under 30 seconds? |
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Onwards and Upwards,
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