Hitting Your Target - Pitch Questionnaire
GUIDELINES
● Please answer all of the following questions by March 10th, 2016 and upload your
document here. Please use your RISE presentation title for the file name.
● Each answer should be no more than 20 words. If you can do it in 10 words =
impressive; and if you keep it to 5 words or less = you’re amazingly efficient!)
● Use simple words; NO jargon (industry specific terms), NO acronyms.
TEAM INFORMATION
1. Title of your RISE presentation?
a.
2. Please list the names of your team members
a.
PITCH QUESTIONS: RISE
1. What is your background? (Keep it relevant to your RISE project)
a.
2. What is your specific role in this business/venture/project? (Lead inventor; CEO, etc.)
a.
3. Who are the critical members of your team? (Limit to 3 total, including you!)
a.
StuartofThePitch 2016 ©
Hitting Your Target - Pitch Questionnaire
4. What problem(s) are you solving now? (Hunger? Disease? Avoiding wasted time? Saving
tax payers’ money?) Pick the most compelling problems that you can/will/hope to fix.
a.
5. What do you do? (3-5 words should do) “We sell hardware”. “We reduce suffering”.
“We make bikes”. “We write music”. Etc.
a.
6. Who, specifically, do you help? (I.E. Who needs this solution right now?)
a.
7. Why should we care? (Seriously, there are lots of bad/good things happening in the
world today – why should we stop thinking about those things and care about this?)
a.
8. How do (did) you know this is (was) a significant problem? What specifically lead you
this conclusion? (Research? Data? Studies? Experiences? Frustration? Personal issues?)
a.
9. Why is NOW the right time for your idea? (I.E. What factors exist so that you can work
on this solution? “It’s a growing trend”, or “It’s a worsening condition”, or “There is
better technology available”.)
a.
10. What is your solution? (Repetitive, I know – just keep going ☺)
a.
StuartofThePitch 2016 ©
Hitting Your Target - Pitch Questionnaire
11. How does it work? (Avoid technical, scientific, multi-syllabic words. Make. It. Simple.)
a.
12. What makes your solution unique? Can this scale? (If it’s all about you, can we clone
you? No? Then, what truly makes your solution special?)
a.
13. Who else is doing this? (Or as far as you can tell, who else is doing something similar to
this? We need to know that you deeply understand the competitive landscape).
a.
14. Why didn’t this solution exist before? (Or, why do you think no one else thought of it?)
a.
15. How did you (and/or your team) come up with this idea?
a.
16. Why do you do it? (I mean a deep WHY. A life changing WHY. There are many problems
to solve in life - Why do you truly care about devoting your valuable time and energy
and money to solving this particular problem?)
a.
17. How are you making the world a better place?
a.
18. How are you going to reach your customers/investors/key people? (List at least 3
distinct ways that you’re going to reach out – be specific.)
StuartofThePitch 2016 ©
Hitting Your Target - Pitch Questionnaire
a.
19. How will you make money? (If that’s not the goal, what is the goal and how will you
prove your efficacy?)
a.
20. What milestones have you achieved? (Recap past benchmarks; 1 year, 6 months, etc.)
a.
21. What do you hope to achieve in the next 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? If you had to
pick one resource that you need the most right now (time, money, valuable
connections, research space, a software developer, 10 customers, 1000 users) what
would it be and how much/many do you need to be viable? What will you do with that
resource? Be specific.
a.
StuartofThePitch 2016 ©