Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Crabtree: Pitching 'what if I'm right' shifts investors to upside thinking

Robbie Crabtree · Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch · Oct 23, 2023 · at 17:20

Storytelling coach Robbie Crabtree explains the optimal psychological framing founders should use when pitching venture capitalists to Alex Lieberman.

0:00 / 0:21exact quote · 21.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And if you get an investor thinking through the lens of what if I'm right, that's how you get them thinking about, oh, this is the fund returner. This is the outlier inside of the fund, because now they're just thinking about the biggest upside case instead of all of the downside risk. And that's really... A big mindset shift for founders to go from, I've got to prove to them I'm right, to what if I'm right?”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Robbie Crabtree

Insight
Crabtree: Numbers are meaningless without narrative framing
“Numbers on their own are meaningless. I can make numbers say good or bad, no matter what.”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 4:25 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Insight
Crabtree: A great startup pitch is an exercise in world-building
“A great startup pitch is made when an investor can see the future that that person is talking about. The reality is a pitch really is a story, but deeper than that, beyond just a story, it's actually an exercise in world building.”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 1:52 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Insight
Crabtree: Pitch future vision before presenting current traction metrics
“The reason why I say to do it this way is future and then go back to its working is if an investor already knows what the end goal should look like. And then you come and say, here's all the data points that show us that we're on the right path. They're going …”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 6:34 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Insight
Crabtree: Personal connection makes investors search for reasons to say yes
“When we like somebody, when we believe in them, when we connect to them, we look for green flags. We look for reasons to say yes. That's just human nature.”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 8:55 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Insight
Crabtree: Founders must pitch with approachable expertise rather than weakness or aggression
“And so what I've actually come up with is this idea of what I call approachable expertise. And it's a tone that you want to deliver where it's like, Hey, I know what I'm talking about, but Alex, like if you have pushback, let's have the conversation. Let's, le…”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 11:04 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Insight
Crabtree: Pitch pushback shows investors how founders will lead as CEOs
“And investors also, in my experience, want founders who are willing to stand up for themselves and to push back because it's a microcosm of their experience as a CEO long-term.”
Robbie Crabtree Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 14:22 Why Storytelling is the Key to Your Pitch
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.