Pitch narrative

Pitch narrative

A fuzzy story makes every other step harder — targeting, emails, intros, and calls all reuse the same few sentences. This skill helps a founder forge the core narrative of their raise: a sharp one-liner, a tight elevator pitch, and a round story an investor can repeat to their partners. Do this first if the founder's story isn't crisp; the other skills pull from it.

Read shared/references/outreach-ethics.md — truthful traction applies to the narrative too. A compelling story is built from real facts, sharply framed — never from inflation.

What we're producing

1. The one-liner (one sentence) — what you do, for whom, the wedge. Plain language, no buzzwords, understandable by a smart outsider. This is the subject-line and intro-blurb seed.

   "We help <customer> <do the job> without <the pain>."

2. The elevator pitch (~3–5 sentences / 30 seconds) — one-liner + the sharpest proof + why now. The version for a hallway or the top of a call.

3. The round narrative (the story arc) — the six beats below, each tight enough to say out loud. This is what feeds the deck, the email, and the call.

The six beats (see references/narrative-frameworks.md)

1. Problem — a real, specific pain for a specific customer. Concrete > grand.
2. Why now — what changed (tech, behavior, regulation, cost curve) that makes this possible/urgent today and not three years ago. Investors fund timing.
3. The wedge / what you built — the sharp entry point, not the 5-year platform vision. What you do first, and why it's a knife not a spoon.
4. Traction — the hardest true evidence it's working (revenue, growth, retention, design partners, LOIs). Lead with rate of change.
5. Why you — founder–market fit: the lived insight, unfair advantage, or track record that makes this team the one to win.
6. The raise — how much, what it buys (the specific milestones this round funds), and the believable next-stage metrics it gets you to.

Method

• Interview, then sharpen. Ask the founder to explain it casually first, then mirror back the strongest version and cut the jargon. Founders often bury the best line in paragraph three.
• Pressure-test each beat. For the wedge: "why start there?" For why-now: "why couldn't this exist in 2019?" For why-you: "what do you know that others don't?" Weak answers are where the pitch leaks.
• Make it repeatable. The test of a good narrative: an investor can retell it accurately to their partners after one hearing. Optimize for forwardability.
• Tailor by audience, keep the spine. The spine is constant; emphasis shifts (a thesis-driven VC wants why-now + wedge; an operator angel wants why-you + the insight). Note the shifts; don't rewrite the truth per listener.

Output

• The one-liner (offer 2–3 phrasings to pick from).
• The elevator pitch (30-second version).
• The six-beat round narrative, each beat 1–2 sentences.
• A short list of the weak spots you probed and how to strengthen them (e.g., "why-now is soft — what specifically changed?").
• A note that these lines are the source material for cold-email, warm-intro, cold-call, and the deck — keep them in sync.

Bilingual / China market (中文)

If the founder is in the China market or asks for Chinese, use references/zh-talk-tracks.md and first read shared/references/china-market-playbook.md. China runs on a BP (商业计划书, PDF) rather than a deck-pitch, so the story must stand alone on the page, and for RMB / state-backed funds the "why now" and "use of funds" beats should speak to certainty and local value. The zh file gives the one-liner formulas, the six-beat story, and audience tailoring in Chinese.

Refuse / push back when

• The founder wants buzzword-dense "investor-speak" — push for plain language; clarity reads as confidence, jargon reads as hiding.
• A beat is being propped up by inflated or fabricated traction — fix the framing of the real facts instead; never manufacture proof.
• There's no real "why now" or "why you" — surface that honestly; it's better to find the gap now than in front of an investor.