Your Startup Pitch: Words Matter More Than You Think

An article we liked from Thought Leader Garrett Brown:

The Small Speaking Habits That Quietly Kill Startup Pitches

Verbal tics I’ve seen repeatedly as an investor, founder, and professor

After listening to hundreds of startup pitches I’ve noticed something.

A lot of founders lose credibility before they’ve said anything meaningful about their business.

Not because the idea is bad, but because of small communication habits they don’t realize they have.

Things like starting every answer with “Yeah, so…”.
Ending all of their sentences like they’re asking for permission.
Saying “kinda” 247 times in one pitch.
Or dropping a “right?” after way too many statements.

Individually they seem harmless.

But after you’ve listened to enough pitches, you start to notice how quickly these patterns create friction, right?

(Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

Investors start tuning out before the substance even shows up.

I’ve been seeing the same things lately while helping my USC students prepare for pitch competitions, so I made a list of the ones that show up most often.

If you’re pitching (or helping someone with their pitch), these are worth paying attention to.

“Right?”

Founder: “Customer acquisition cost is the key metric in this space, right? So we focused on driving that down and we’ve gotten it to $47, right?”

I get why people do this. You’re trying to bring the investor along with you, make it feel collaborative.

But it has the opposite effect. It makes it seem like you need validation for every point you’re making. And if you do it too often, it becomes incredibly distracting.

Saying “right?” doesn’t automatically get the listener to agree with you. Instead, just…