Pitch Guides
Pitch Readiness Self-Score
Score your startup the way accelerator, incubator, and early-stage evaluators will. Most evaluation forms rate four areas from 1 to 5, and most pitches are decided by a few checks that never appear on the form. Answer honestly, and the readout will show what to fix first.
Free. Takes about five minutes.
Step 1
Your sector
Choosing a sector adds the checks evaluators apply in that field.
Step 2
The four scores
Pick the number that matches where you are today, using the descriptions as a guide.
Team
1Solo or part-time, no domain or startup experience, no plan to fill gaps.
3Core team in place and mostly full-time, with a named gap and a plan.
5Complete, full-time, and complementary, with domain and prior building or selling experience. Open to feedback.
Product
1An idea or slides. The mechanism is hard to explain in specific terms.
3Working prototype, a clear mechanism, and a reasoned case for differentiation.
5Proof in real conditions, with an advantage evaluators can check against the incumbent.
Market and value
1A broad category, a top-down market size, and no named buyer.
3A named segment and buyer, with the value to them stated.
5A named buyer with budget, value in one number, and a bottom-up market that supports a large outcome.
Traction and readiness
1Interest only, with nothing paid or started.
3Design partners or pilots under way, appropriate for the company's age.
5Paying customers and steady growth, ahead of what the company's age would suggest.
Step 3
The hidden gates
Evaluators treat these as pass or fail. A single "no" can outweigh good scores.
The CEO will present, with every co-founder on the call.
Every founder is full-time, or has a dated plan to be by the program start.
The application, deck, website, and every founder's LinkedIn agree on the facts.
You have a one-sentence structural answer to “what stops someone bigger from building the same product.”
You have done the arithmetic on your own numbers, including contracted, signed, and collected revenue.
Your competitors are named on a slide, with a specific difference for each.
The company owns or has licensed its core IP, and you know each patent's status.
The pitch opens with what you make and who pays, with the problem kept brief.