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Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Startups to Investors
Babak Nivi, Venture Hacks Staff, Naval Ravikant
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Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Startups to Investors — Chapter-by-Chapter Outline
Author: Babak Nivi and Naval Ravikant (Venture Hacks) First published: 2009 (launched February 26, 2009; copyright 2008 Venture Hacks Inc.) Edition covered: First edition, 86 pages. Published via Lulu.com (ISBN: 978-0-557-23559-9). The content originated as blog posts on venturehacks.com and was refined through reader and beta-tester feedback before being compiled into this book. No subsequent revised edition has been issued; AngelList and StartupList references were added in a 2009/2010 update page within the same PDF.
Central thesis
Investors do not fund businesses — they fund stories about businesses. A startup that cannot tell a compelling, concise story about its traction, team, product, and vision will be overlooked, no matter how strong the underlying company. The book argues that the entire fundraising process follows a strict hierarchy: a warm introduction from a trusted middleman is the essential first gate; an elevator pitch is the tool that earns a meeting; a ten-slide deck deepens investor understanding; and a business plan is unnecessary. None of these tools matter without traction — demonstrable product/market fit — which is the single most important signal investors evaluate.
The central logic is that attention is scarce, competition is intense, and the right story architecture unlocks the right introductions, meetings, and term sheets. The book is a practitioner's manual, not a theory text: each section answers a specific question a first-time founder faces when preparing to raise money.
How do you get multiple investment offers at the same time — and how do you tell a story that keeps a gem from going unnoticed?
Chapter 1 — Traction
Central question
What do investors actually care about most, and what must a startup demonstrate before pitching?
Main argument
Defining traction
Traction is the book's foundational concept. It is defined as a measure of your product's engagement with its market — in other words, evidence of product/market fit. Nivi and Ravikant rank traction signals in explicit order of importance: profit, revenue, paying customers, pilot customers, non-paying users, and verified hypotheses about customer problems. Each of these is weighted by its rate of change, not just its absolute level. A company showing 10% week-over-week growth in any of these signals can attract interest even at an early stage.
The chapter states plainly: a story without traction is a work of fiction. The practical implication is that founders should not begin fundraising until they have started building and have at least tested their idea with real customers — even if that testing amounts to showing a piece of paper to potential buyers and asking how much they would pay. The authors argue that this lean approach to evidence-gathering is both credible to investors and achievable for any founder willing to reduce scope.
The traction ladder and what it changes
The chapter presents a clear framework for what traction unlocks:
- If you have incredible traction in what seems to be a large market, you can raise money regardless of what the product and team look like, though strong product and team improve terms.
- If you have some traction and the market seems large, product and team become critical.
- If you have no traction, a great demo or a previously successful team become essential.
- If the market does not seem large, investors will not care about product, team, or company at all.
This ladder reveals something important: traction is not merely a nice-to-have signaling device. It is the primary variable that determines what else matters.
Marc Andreessen's product/market fit argument
The chapter incorporates a long passage from Marc Andreessen's "The Pmarca Guide to Startups" on the singular importance of product/market fit. Andreessen's argument: in a great market — one with real, hungry customers — the market pulls product out of the startup. The product does not need to be great; it just needs to basically work. The team does not need to be exceptional; it needs to be capable of shipping that viable product. In a terrible market, by contrast, the best product and the most talented team will eventually fail and demoralize. Successful startups, Andreessen argues, are the ones that reached product/market fit, often after screwing up many other things along the way.
The practical instruction that follows is radical: do whatever is required to reach product/market fit — change out people, rewrite the product, move into a different market, take dilutive capital. Nothing else matters as much.
Key ideas
- Traction is defined as product/market fit, measured through profit, revenue, customers, pilots, non-paying users, and verified hypotheses — in that order.
- Rates of change (growth) matter as much as absolute levels.
- A story without traction is fiction; founders should begin building and testing before approaching investors.
- The traction level determines what else (product, team) an investor will scrutinize.
- Product/market fit, once achieved, makes most other startup problems survivable.
- In a great market, the market pulls the product forward; in a terrible market, nothing else compensates.
- Founders who succeed do not wait for investors before building — they cannot wait.
Key takeaway
Traction — evidence of product/market fit — is the single variable that overrides all other investor considerations, and no pitch is convincing without it.
Chapter 2 — Introductions
Central question
How do you get in front of investors who receive far more meeting requests than they can accommodate?
Main argument
Why cold outreach fails
The chapter opens with a direct statement: do not spam investors with your business plan. Investors receive more meeting requests than they can accommodate, and they use introductions to filter and prioritize. A cold email can work if traction, team, or product is extraordinary — but the authors note that these conditions are rare. More importantly, the ability to secure introductions is itself a test of entrepreneurial skill: if you cannot persuade a middleman to make an introduction, it raises questions about whether you can persuade employees to join, customers to buy, or investors to commit.
The hierarchy of middlemen
Not all introductions are equal. The chapter ranks middlemen in rough order of effectiveness:
- Entrepreneurs whom the investor has backed, made money with, wants to back, or is currently backing.
- Other investors who have co-invested with the target investor.
- Market, product, and technology experts — senior executives at dominant companies, respected professors.
- Lawyers, accountants, and industry professionals.
- Weak ties (someone the investor met at a party once).
The quality of the middleman determines whether the meeting request floats to the top or gets ignored. The authors add a diagnostic question founders should ask any prospective middleman: "How do you know this investor? What have you done together? What companies have you sent them that they subsequently backed?" The answers reveal whether the relationship is strong enough to carry weight.
Who makes the worst introductions
Two categories of middlemen actively harm a pitch. First, an investor who declines to invest but offers to introduce you to others is a red flag — unless they have a good reason for passing, such introductions signal to the next investor that the previous one looked and said no. Second, introductions from middlemen who investors barely know, or do not trust, make the founder look like they have not done their homework. An introduction that begins "I don't know if you remember me" is worse than no introduction.
How to secure introductions
The practical advice is direct: pick up the phone and call every person you know who knows investors well and will listen to you. Call in all favors. Explain why investors will appreciate the introduction by using the high-concept pitch and elevator pitch described in subsequent chapters. Push middlemen toward single, strong introductions rather than multiple weak email forwards — one strong phone call is worth more than three weak emails.
If a middleman hesitates, offer to make them an advisor as incentive. If no traction is possible, ask for referrals to other potential middlemen. If introductions remain impossible, the authors give frank advice: go back to the drawing board, grow the company, work at a startup to build connections, or blog about the company. Nobody said this was fast or easy.
AngelList and StartupList
The chapter describes two tools the authors created: AngelList (a curated list of angel investors including Ram Shriram, Mike Maples, and Brad Feld, with profiles detailing how much they invest, what they look for, and portfolio companies) and StartupList (a service where founders submit a pitch and Venture Hacks forwards it to interested angels). The chapter cites early data: five weeks after launch, 15 startups had been introduced to 25 investors, and 2 had been funded.
Key ideas
- Investors use introductions to filter the overwhelming volume of meeting requests; cold outreach requires exceptional traction to overcome the disadvantage.
- Getting an introduction is itself a test of entrepreneurial skill — it mimics the challenges of recruiting, selling, and fundraising.
- Middleman quality is hierarchical: backed entrepreneurs and co-investors are most valuable; casual acquaintances and rejected investors are actively harmful.
- Ask diagnostic questions about the middleman's actual relationship with the investor before accepting or pursuing an introduction.
- Push for single strong introductions over multiple weak ones.
- If introductions are impossible, that is a signal to grow the company rather than work around the problem.
- AngelList and StartupList were early tools that demonstrated the scalable, systematic version of introduction-sourcing.
Key takeaway
The warm introduction — from a trusted middleman who investors respect — is the most important first gate in fundraising, and securing one requires the same persuasion skills as every other aspect of building a startup.
Chapter 3 — High-Concept Pitches
Central question
How do you distill your startup's vision into a single, memorable phrase that others can repeat on your behalf?
Main argument
What a high-concept pitch is
A high-concept pitch distills a startup's entire vision into a single phrase or sentence. The authors borrow the format from Hollywood: "It's Jaws in space" (Alien), "A bus with a bomb" (Speed), "Snakes on a Plane." The startup equivalents they cite are precise and illustrative:
- "Friendster for dogs" — Dogster
- "Flickr for video" — YouTube
- "We network networks" — Cisco
- "The Firefox of media players" — Songbird
- "Massively Multiplayer Online Learning" — Grockit
- "The entrepreneurs behind the entrepreneurs" — Sequoia Capital
- "Create your own social network" — Ning
Each example works because both halves of the analogy are already understood by the audience. The pitch combines familiar building blocks — often by juxtaposition or analogy — to create an instant mental image.
What makes a good high-concept pitch
The chapter gives three criteria. First, brevity: one short sentence or phrase. Second, familiar building blocks: the audience must already know the components being combined (buses, bombs, Flickr, Firefox). Third, the pitch is usually not the same as the company's tagline, because pitch and tagline speak to different audiences. YouTube's tagline "Broadcast Yourself" speaks to users; its pitch "Flickr for video" speaks to investors, employees, and the press. A pitch that is also a good tagline — like Cisco's "We network networks" — is ideal but not required.
Why a high-concept pitch matters
The chapter identifies two functional purposes. First, it is a meme that fans, investors, and the press can use to spread the word. TechCrunch's headline "Comparing the Flickrs of Video" is cited as evidence that the pitch propagates on its own. Second, it is the core of an effective elevator pitch — the chapter notes that bad elevator pitches go on and on about product details, while good ones anchor to a high-concept pitch and use the remaining space for traction, team, and social proof.
The "too simple" objection answered
Some people object that high-concept pitches are too simple. The authors agree — and say that is the point. They are the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one. Attention is scarce, and a high-concept pitch captures just enough of it to earn the chance to tell the rest of the story. "How is anybody going to tell anybody about your product if you can't describe it in a few words?"
From incoherent to high-concept: a worked example
The chapter walks through a real-world case study. Anthony Stevens, founder of Crowdify, submitted a paragraph-length description of his company involving semantic analysis, brand reputation management, and social-networking metaphors for consumer-generated correlations. The authors note that most readers stopped reading after the first sentence. Stevens then applied the high-concept framework and arrived at "Facebook for Brands" — brief, using a familiar reference, and immediately comprehensible. The chapter uses this to illustrate that almost any complex startup can be reduced to a high-concept pitch through disciplined iteration.
Key ideas
- A high-concept pitch combines familiar building blocks (often via "A for B" or "X of Y" structures) into a single, memorable image.
- Hollywood's pitch conventions provide the template; startups should apply the same economy of expression.
- The pitch is a meme — its job is to be repeatable and memorable so others can spread it.
- It is distinct from a tagline: a pitch speaks to investors and the press; a tagline speaks to customers.
- Simplicity is a feature, not a bug: the pitch opens doors, it does not close deals.
- A worked example shows that even complex, jargon-heavy companies can generate effective high-concept pitches through iteration.
Key takeaway
A high-concept pitch — a single, memorable analogy-based phrase — is the meme that enables investors, press, and fans to spread the word about your company, and it serves as the anchor for every other pitch format.
Chapter 4 — Elevator Pitches
Central question
What does a brief, written pitch look like in practice, and how do you construct one that earns a meeting?
Main argument
What an elevator pitch is (and is not)
An elevator pitch in the Venture Hacks framework is a short email — not a spoken pitch in an elevator — that a middleman can forward to an investor with a thumbs-up. It is explicitly not a conversation; it is a written document designed to be skimmed, forwarded, and acted upon quickly. The chapter distinguishes its role from the deck: the middleman sells investors on reading the elevator pitch; the elevator pitch sells investors on reading the deck; the deck sells investors on taking a meeting. Many investors, the authors note, will skip the deck entirely and take the meeting if the introduction and elevator pitch are strong.
A fully annotated example
The chapter constructs an elevator pitch using information from Marc Andreessen's blog posts about Ning, then dissects it line by line. The pitch covers:
- A useful subject line that names both companies: "Introducing Ning to Blue Shirt Capital"
- Reiteration of the social proof of the introducer
- Acknowledgment that a deck is attached
- The high-concept pitch ("Ning lets you create your own social network for anything. For free. In 2 minutes.")
- A product metaphor ("It's as easy as starting a blog")
- A link to the live product
- The big problem or opportunity the company addresses
- Traction metrics ("over 115,000 user-created networks, page views growing 10% per week")
- Social proof from prior fundraising ("raised $44M from Legg Mason")
- Team's past successes ("Before Ning, I started Netscape, acquired by AOL for $4.2B, and Opsware, acquired by HP for $1.6B")
- A specific, flattering reason why this particular investor is a fit
- A call to action combined with subtle scarcity ("We're starting meetings with investors next week")
- Contact information
The annotated version shows exactly what each sentence does and why it belongs. The product description covers the product in one paragraph of 29 words. The rest is devoted to traction, team, and social proof.
The bullet-point variant
For founders who struggle with prose, the chapter introduces a bullet-point version of the elevator pitch. It reproduces a real cold email (with identifying information redacted): 88 words, four of five bullets about traction, demonstrating product/market fit through raw numbers (1.5 million registered users, growing 10,000–15,000 new users per day). The prose and formatting were imperfect, but the brevity and traction data earned a follow-up. A bullet rewrite of the Ning pitch is also shown, coming in at 163 words — and the authors challenge founders to target under 100 words.
David Cowan on the Verisign pitch
The chapter ends with a passage from David Cowan (Bessemer Venture Partners) recounting how Stratton Sclavos, as new CEO of Verisign (then Digital Certificates, Inc.), replaced a technically accurate but incomprehensible explanation of public-key cryptography with "We are bringing Trust to cyberspace, and our first product is a Driver's License for the Internet." Cowan's point: the technical pitch made audiences feel stupid; the metaphor-based pitch focused on the market problem and made the idea instantly accessible. The lesson reinforces the elevator pitch's core discipline — simplicity and market framing beat technical accuracy.
Key ideas
- An elevator pitch is a short email, not a spoken pitch; it is designed to be forwarded by a middleman.
- The funnel: introduction → elevator pitch → deck → meeting; strong early stages can skip later ones.
- A complete elevator pitch covers: high-concept pitch, product metaphor, demo link, problem/opportunity, traction metrics, social proof from prior funding, team credibility, investor-specific fit, call to action, and contact information.
- The product description should be minimal (around 29 words in the Ning example); traction, team, and social proof fill the rest.
- Bullet-point format is a legitimate alternative for founders who struggle with flowing prose.
- Metaphor beats technical accuracy: pitch the market problem and your solution's benefit, not the underlying mechanism.
- Target under 100 words for a bullet-format pitch.
Key takeaway
A great elevator pitch is a short, forwardable email that leads with traction and a high-concept pitch, then provides enough social proof and team credibility to earn a meeting — with brevity as the paramount discipline.
Chapter 5 — Decks
Central question
What should a pitch deck contain, how should it be structured, and how do you present it?
Main argument
What a deck is — and its proper role
A deck is a PowerPoint (or equivalent) presentation that provides more detail about the business than the elevator pitch can. It covers sections absent from the elevator pitch — problem, solution, marketing, sales, competition, and milestones. The authors are careful to establish its proper place in the hierarchy: the deck is less important than the elevator pitch, and the elevator pitch is less important than the middleman. Many investors will skim the deck and take a meeting if the introduction and elevator pitch are strong. But a deck is still worth sending: it lets investors learn more, demonstrates that the founder has thought in detail about the company, and is an industry norm. You need one for in-person presentations anyway.
The best deck template in the universe
The chapter adapts a twelve-slide template from David Cowan at Bessemer Venture Partners:
- Cover. Logo, tagline, complete contact information.
- Summary. The key, compelling facts of the company. Steal content from the elevator pitch.
- Team. Past accomplishments, not current titles. If the team has been successful before, investors may believe it can be successful again. Include advisors who bring something special. Do not list positions you intend to fill — save those for the Milestones slide. Put yourself last to tell a career narrative that leads to this company.
- Problem. Describe the customer, market, and problem without mentioning your product. Emphasize pain level and the inadequacy of competitors.
- Solution. Introduce the product and its benefits. Include a demo — screencast, link to working software, or screenshots. The authors note bluntly: "God help you if you have nothing to show."
- Technology. Describe the technology behind the solution. Focus on how it enables differentiation. Mention patent status if applicable.
- Marketing. Who are the customers? How large is the market? How will you acquire customers? What customers have you already acquired?
- Sales. What is the business model? If there are sales, describe them and the pipeline. Emphasize microeconomics (each user is worth $X because...) over macroeconomics (if we capture 1% of a $10B market...).
- Competition. Explain why customers choose your product over alternatives. Describe competitive advantages that persist even if competitors copy you exactly. Never deny having competitors.
- Milestones. Current status and prospective milestones for the next 1–3 quarters across product, team, marketing, and sales. Use a table with quarters on the x-axis. Include quarterly and cumulative gross burn. Describe what hypotheses were tested in the prior round and what this round will test.
- Conclusion. An inspirational statement of larger vision, or a rehash of the Summary slide.
- Financing. Dates, amounts, and sources of money raised. Amount sought in this round. Restate the hypotheses this round will test.
Telling a story with the slides
The slide sequence is a narrative: "We have a mission and a team taking us there. We discovered a large problem and solved it with a product using this technology. We will market and sell to these customers, with these advantages over competitors. We are working toward these milestones. This financing is a great investment opportunity." The authors note this is the sequence for a written deck; live presentations should almost always open with a demo, even if the audience has already seen it. The team slide can move after the technology slide. The sequence should serve a good story, not the reverse.
Formatting discipline
Keep slides simple, visual, and minimal. Use 30-point or larger font. Put reasoning, talking points, and prose in the notes accompanying each slide — do not try to cram arguments into bullet points on the slides. Email investors a PDF that combines each slide with its notes on a single page (slide on top, notes on bottom), so investors can read through and imagine the presentation. Do not email PowerPoint files unless the deck contains critical animations. The authors recommend Apple Keynote for Mac users.
The chapter closes with Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule: ten slides, no more than twenty minutes, no font smaller than thirty points. Marc Hedlund adds the warning against the "classic engineer's pitch" — ten slides about the product, two about academic achievements — noting that product matters far less to investors than customer reactions, market properties, and team credibility.
Key ideas
- A deck is the third element in the funnel: introduction → elevator pitch → deck → meeting. It is optional but valuable.
- The twelve-slide Bessemer template covers: cover, summary, team, problem, solution, technology, marketing, sales, competition, milestones, conclusion, financing.
- The summary slide should mirror the elevator pitch; the milestones slide replaces the business plan.
- Prefer microeconomic arguments (per-unit economics) over top-down market share projections.
- Slides are visual and minimal; reasoning goes in the notes accompanying each slide.
- Send a PDF combining slide and notes, not a raw PowerPoint file.
- Live presentations should open with a demo regardless of whether the audience has seen it.
- Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule is a useful constraint.
Key takeaway
A well-structured twelve-slide deck tells a coherent story — from problem through team, solution, market, and milestones — and is most powerful when the slides stay visual and the reasoning lives in accompanying notes.
Chapter 6 — Business Plans
Central question
Does a startup need a formal business plan when approaching investors?
Main argument
The direct answer
The chapter's argument is compressed into a single, blunt assertion: nobody reads business plans, and nobody executes them. The authors state that investors who demand a long plan look bad, and companies that generate them waste time.
What replaces a business plan
The Milestones slide of the deck already summarizes the company's plan for the next one to three quarters. Detailed planning should live on a napkin, wiki, spreadsheet, or to-do list — shared with investors around the second meeting to ensure alignment, especially around hypotheses the company is testing. But this is different from a 50-page formatted document. An elevator pitch and deck are sufficient for first contact; an executive summary is also unnecessary.
David Cowan on "The Pile"
The chapter quotes Cowan at length. Every VC has a "Pile" — a tower of business plans, white papers, analyst reports, and scientific journals waiting to be read with quiet thought and deliberation. Nothing slows down a VC as much as a comprehensive business plan dropped on their desk. PowerPoint presentations, by contrast, can be quickly emailed and skimmed, eliciting faster indications of fit and making it easier for a partner to present the opportunity internally. The implication is structural: a business plan's format itself is an obstacle, regardless of its content quality. "PowerPoint plans greatly increase your chance of getting a term sheet, or at least the dignity of a quick No."
The chapter endorses detailed internal planning — documenting hypotheses, metrics, and objectives so the team builds consensus — but argues that this working document should never be sent to investors.
Key ideas
- Nobody reads or executes traditional business plans; they signal poor judgment from both the investor who demands one and the company that writes one.
- The Milestones slide is the investor-facing substitute for a business plan: next 1–3 quarters, across product, team, marketing, and sales.
- Detailed internal planning is valuable; external business plan documents are not.
- VCs have a "Pile" of unread business plans; PowerPoint decks generate faster responses and decisions.
- An executive summary is also unnecessary — the elevator pitch serves that function.
Key takeaway
A business plan is neither read nor needed; an elevator pitch and deck are sufficient for investors, while internal planning should live in a lightweight working document the team actually uses.
Chapter 7 — NDAs
Central question
Should a startup ask investors to sign a non-disclosure agreement before sharing its pitch materials?
Main argument
Why investors will not sign NDAs
The chapter opens with Sequoia Capital's boilerplate disclaimer — reproduced verbatim — stating that they do not accept responsibility for protecting confidential information absent an express written agreement. This is the norm, not the exception. The authors explain the structural reason: competing companies tend to get started at the same time because market timing is right. If investors sign an NDA with Company A, they expose themselves to being sued if they later fund Company B in the same space — so they refuse. Asking for an NDA is therefore not just declined; it marks the founder as someone who has not done their homework, and the meeting request may be ignored entirely.
The real barrier an NDA creates
An NDA is presented as a barrier to entry for competitors. What it actually is, the authors argue, is a barrier to getting funded. The advice: if you must keep something confidential, do not email it to investors and do not mention it in person. Keep your secrets secret. Investors often look at multiple similar companies simultaneously; your plans probably will not reach the competition, but you should assume they will.
Pros and cons of sending a deck
The chapter presents a balanced analysis of whether to include a deck at all (separate from the NDA question). The pro: it may help secure a meeting. Two cons: first, adding a deck can reduce the effectiveness of an already strong elevator pitch — sometimes less is more. Second, decks can reach the competition. Rich Skrenta is quoted describing how, while sitting in a VC's office, the VC casually tossed him a competitor's business plan. The chapter uses this to underscore that decks shared with investors who don't fund you may end up in the hands of future competitors who do get funded in your space.
When to send a deck
The decision rule is leverage-based: if you want the meeting more than they do, provide what they want — if they want a deck, give them a deck. If they want the meeting more than you do, you can set the terms. Leverage comes from traction. Practical protective measures when sending a deck: write "Proprietary and Confidential — Please do not distribute — Prepared for [Investor Name]" on the cover (some founders add it to every page), ask recipients by email not to forward outside their firm, and consider sending a teaser deck — an abridged version with just enough information to earn a meeting.
The reality of secrecy
The chapter closes with a point that deflates the NDA premise: most founders do not actually have meaningful secrets. The value of an idea alone is close to zero; the value lies in execution. Founders should work with an advisor experienced in their field to assess which of their "secrets" are genuinely novel and protectable — and which are not. Traction, the authors reiterate, speaks louder than any confidentiality measure.
Key ideas
- Professional investors will not sign NDAs; requesting one marks a founder as uninformed and may end the conversation.
- NDAs protect against theoretical competitor access but create a real barrier to fundraising.
- Decks can reach competitors — not because investors share them maliciously, but as a structural byproduct of how VCs evaluate multiple companies in the same space.
- The deck-sending decision depends on leverage: if you want the meeting more than they do, give them the deck.
- Practical protections: confidentiality labels with the investor's name, email requests not to forward, or a teaser deck instead of the full version.
- Most founders do not have secrets worth protecting at the pitch stage; execution creates value, not the idea itself.
Key takeaway
Never ask investors for an NDA — it signals naivety and creates a real barrier to getting funded; instead, assume pitch materials may reach competitors, protect only what is genuinely secret, and rely on execution advantage rather than information barriers.
Chapter 8 — Grockit Interview
Central question
What does a real founder's experience of fundraising reveal about the practical application of these principles?
Main argument
The Grockit case study
This section is a reproduced interview: Brian Norgard (founder of Newroo) interviews Farbood Nivi (founder of Grockit, the "Massively Multiplayer Online Learning" company used as a high-concept pitch example elsewhere in the book). The interview is explicitly practical — a founder describing their Series A experience.
Farbood's framing of investor relationships
Farbood opens with an observation that reframes the power dynamic in fundraising: VCs are not doing founders a favor by investing. They are in the business of deploying capital; the money must be spent. Either your startup gets it or someone else's does. No VC has a perfect track record. The implication: either your business genuinely struggles, or you are failing to explain it well. There is more money available to invest than VCs know what to do with.
Two situations every founder is in
Farbood presents a binary framework:
- Situation 1: The founder knows literally nobody in the VC or angel community — not even connections of connections. His response: this situation is not realistic. Any serious internet founder should be on LinkedIn, engaging with the startup blogging community (including Venture Hacks), and building relationships before needing capital. If you cannot get out of Situation 1, you cannot raise money — and this is the first cutoff.
- Situation 2: The founder knows even one person connected to the VC/angel world. From there, the process is sequential: ask that person for an introduction, ask the next person for another introduction, continue building the network and impressing people with the company. Rinse and repeat.
What Farbood learned from the Series A
The chapter closes with a personal reflection from Farbood: a disproportionate share of VCs, relative to most populations, are extremely smart, gregarious, and insightful. The fundraising process is more positive than founders expect, and the time spent meeting VCs is valuable in itself — even when the meetings do not result in investment. His final advice: make your pitch great, not just good.
Key ideas
- VCs must deploy capital; the power dynamic is more balanced than founders typically assume.
- Either the business has problems, or the founder is failing to communicate it — there is rarely a third explanation for why a pitch does not land.
- Building a network before needing it is the prerequisite for getting into Situation 2, where introductions are possible.
- The iterative introduction chain (ask each new contact for one more introduction) is the practical path forward for anyone with at least one connection.
- The experience of meeting VCs is intellectually valuable even when no deal results.
- "Make sure your pitch is great not good."
Key takeaway
The fundraising process is accessible to any founder who builds genuine relationships in the startup community before needing capital, and the quality threshold for a pitch is great, not merely good.
The book's overall argument
Chapter 1 (Traction) — Establishes the foundation: traction — product/market fit demonstrated through profit, revenue, customers, or verified hypotheses — is the single most important variable in fundraising, overriding product quality, team strength, and story.
Chapter 2 (Introductions) — Builds on the foundation: given that traction earns the right to fundraise, the first act of pitching is not a pitch at all but a social and network challenge — securing a warm introduction from a trusted middleman, using the same persuasion skills required to recruit, sell, and lead.
Chapter 3 (High-Concept Pitches) — Introduces the first pitch tool: the high-concept pitch, a single memorable analogy-based phrase that serves as the meme by which investors, press, and fans spread the word, and that anchors the elevator pitch.
Chapter 4 (Elevator Pitches) — Introduces the second pitch tool: the elevator pitch, a brief forwardable email combining traction, high-concept pitch, team credibility, and a call to action — designed to earn a meeting, not close a deal.
Chapter 5 (Decks) — Introduces the third pitch tool: the ten-to-twelve-slide deck that tells a coherent story across team, problem, solution, market, competition, and milestones — filling in the detail the elevator pitch omits.
Chapter 6 (Business Plans) — Clears the field of a false obligation: business plans are neither read nor necessary; the Milestones slide replaces external planning documents, and internal planning should be lightweight and working, not formal.
Chapter 7 (NDAs) — Addresses a common founder mistake: requesting NDAs signals naivety, creates real barriers to fundraising, and does not actually protect information; execution advantage, not information secrecy, is the correct defense.
Chapter 8 (Grockit Interview) — Grounds the framework in lived experience: a real founder's Series A journey validates the introduction-chain approach, reframes the power balance in VC relationships, and sets the standard for pitch quality at "great, not good."
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: The pitch deck is the most important part of fundraising.
The book argues the opposite: the warm introduction is the most important element, the elevator pitch is next, and the deck is third. Many investors will skip the deck entirely if the introduction and elevator pitch are strong enough. The deck is valuable but firmly secondary.
Misunderstanding: Traction means revenue or profit.
Traction is defined broadly as any evidence of product/market fit: profit, revenue, customers, pilot customers, non-paying users, and verified hypotheses about customer problems, in that order. A startup with zero revenue but rapidly growing non-paying users and strong week-over-week engagement has meaningful traction.
Misunderstanding: An NDA protects your idea from competitors.
Asking for an NDA creates a far more immediate problem than the competitor risk it addresses: investors won't sign NDAs, so requesting one ends the conversation. The book also argues that competitors are less of a threat than founders believe, because most startup ideas are not as novel as founders think — execution, not information, creates competitive advantage.
Misunderstanding: A business plan shows investors that you're serious.
The opposite is true. Sending a long business plan to a VC signals that the founder has not done their homework on how investors actually make decisions. The elevator pitch and deck are sufficient; the Milestones slide in the deck replaces the business plan's planning function.
Misunderstanding: High-concept pitches oversimplify the business.
The authors acknowledge the simplification and argue it is intentional. A high-concept pitch is a conversation opener, not a complete description. Its job is to capture enough attention to earn the chance to tell the full story.
Misunderstanding: Cold emails can substitute for introductions.
Cold emails can work, but only with extraordinary traction, team, or product. The authors are direct: these conditions are rare, and for most founders, a cold email is a far weaker substitute for a warm introduction.
Central paradox / key insight
The book's central paradox is that the thing investors say they want — a business plan, detailed projections, an NDA, formal documentation — is precisely what they do not use and will not read. Meanwhile, what actually gets a startup funded is something much simpler and harder: a great story, rooted in real traction, delivered through a trusted human introduction.
"Investors don't invest in businesses. They invest in stories about businesses."
This is counterintuitive because founders naturally believe that thorough documentation signals seriousness and reduces investor risk. The book argues the opposite: a 100-page business plan increases risk from the investor's perspective (it signals the founder does not understand how investors work) and eliminates the fast signal-sending that enables VCs to assess fit quickly. A six-sentence elevator pitch with strong traction data does more work.
The deeper insight is that every tool in the book — the high-concept pitch, the elevator pitch, the deck, the introduction hierarchy — is a compression technology. The startup world operates under extreme scarcity of attention, and the founders who succeed are those who learn to convey the most credible signal in the fewest words, through the most trusted channel.
Important concepts
Traction
The book's defining term. Traction is a measure of a product's engagement with its market — in other words, evidence of product/market fit. It is ranked in order of strength: profit, revenue, paying customers, pilot customers, non-paying users, verified customer-problem hypotheses. Rates of change matter as much as absolute levels. Traction is the variable that overrides all other investor considerations.
Product/market fit
The state in which a product is so well matched to its market that the market pulls the product forward — customers are actively seeking it, and the main job is to answer the phone. Marc Andreessen's formulation: in a great market, the product does not need to be perfect; in a terrible market, no product or team succeeds. Product/market fit is the threshold that must be reached before fundraising makes sense.
High-concept pitch
A single phrase or sentence that distills a startup's vision using familiar analogies or building blocks — typically in the form "X for Y" or "X of Y" (e.g., "Flickr for video"). Its purpose is to be a repeatable meme: something investors, press, and customers can say on the startup's behalf. It is distinct from a tagline, which speaks to users rather than investors and press.
Elevator pitch
In Venture Hacks terminology, a short email (not a spoken pitch) designed to be forwarded by a middleman to an investor. It must cover traction, high-concept pitch, product description, team credibility, social proof, investor fit, and a call to action — all in approximately 100 words or fewer. It is the second gate in the fundraising funnel, after the introduction.
Middleman
Any individual who serves as an intermediary between a founder and an investor — someone whose introduction an investor will take seriously. The effectiveness hierarchy runs from entrepreneurs the investor has backed (most effective) to casual acquaintances (least effective). Middlemen are not just door-openers; they are the primary filter investors use to allocate their attention.
Deck (pitch deck)
A presentation — typically ten to twelve slides — that provides more detail about the business than the elevator pitch can. The canonical template (adapted from David Cowan at Bessemer) covers: cover, summary, team, problem, solution, technology, marketing, sales, competition, milestones, conclusion, and financing. The Milestones slide effectively replaces the business plan for investor purposes.
The Pile
David Cowan's metaphor for the tower of unread business plans, white papers, and documents that accumulates on every VC's desk. It is used to explain why business plans fail to work: not because investors are lazy, but because the format itself demands deliberate, uninterrupted reading time that VCs do not have. PowerPoint decks generate faster responses because they can be skimmed and forwarded.
Teaser deck
An abridged version of the pitch deck — containing just enough information to earn a meeting — sent when the founder is concerned about confidential information reaching the competition. It is a middle path between sending the full deck and sending nothing.
Leverage
The factor that determines whether a founder sends a deck, accepts introductions from weak middlemen, or sets terms in any part of the fundraising process. Leverage comes from traction. "If you want the meeting more than they do, provide what they want. If they want the meeting more than you do, provide what you want."
Social proof
Evidence that credible others — investors, customers, advisors, co-investors — have already evaluated and backed the startup. In the elevator pitch, social proof appears as prior funding amounts, named investors, and notable advisors. It is one of the four major components of the elevator pitch (alongside traction, product, and team).
References and Web Links
Primary book and edition information
- Nivi, Babak and Naval Ravikant. Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Startups to Investors. Venture Hacks Inc., 2009. Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-0-557-23559-9.
Background and overview
- Venture Hacks — official site by Nivi and Ravikant
- Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book — Venture Hacks announcement post
- Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Investors — Venture Hacks pitching overview page
Key ideas: product/market fit
- Marc Andreessen. "The Pmarca Guide to Startups, Part 4: The Only Thing That Matters." (Archived.)
- Referenced in Chapter 1 as the source of the product/market fit framework and the "market pulls product" argument.
Key ideas: pitch deck structure
- David Cowan, Bessemer Venture Partners. "How To NOT Write A Business Plan." Who Has Time For This?
- whohastimeforthis.com (Cowan's blog; the post is referenced in Chapters 5 and 6)
- David Cowan. "Practicing the Art of Pitchcraft." Referenced in Chapter 4 (Verisign/Driver's License story).
- Guy Kawasaki. "The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint." Garage.
- Referenced in Chapter 5 as the slide count / time / font constraint.
Pitching resources referenced in the book
- Eric Ries. "Why Startup Pitches Fail (and How to Fix Them)."
- Steve Blank. "Raising Money Using Customer Development." November 2009.
- Jason Calacanis. "How To Demo Your Startup." TechCrunch, August 2008.
- Chris Dixon. "Pitch Yourself, Not Your Idea." November 2009.
- Mark Suster. "How to Present at Big Meetings without Going Down a Rat Hole." Both Sides of the Table, January 2010.
- Brad Feld. "Are Watermarks On Presentations Useful?" feld.com. Referenced in Chapter 7 (NDA section).
Additional chapter summaries and study resources
These are secondary summaries and should be used alongside, rather than instead of, the original book.