Welcome back to Cutting Through The Fog.
Each week I share the thinking and frameworks I’ve used (and learned the hard way) to help you build with more clarity, more momentum, and fewer avoidable mistakes.
This week it’s pitching: how to make belief inevitable, what matters at pre-seed vs seed, and how to show investors you understand both risk and return.
Yesterday, I was at an event for early-stage businesses seeking investment.
I heard plenty of few founder pitches.
And it reminded me of something most founders miss:
A pitch is not about sounding impressive.
It’s about making belief inevitable.
Belief in three things:
This problem is real.
You can solve it.
An investor can make money.
Most decks cover the first two.
Too many avoid the third. That’s a mistake.
Because VCs are not backing your story.
They’re backing a return.
So here’s what I’d focus on instead.
If you’re pre-seed
Your job is not to “sell the vision”.
Your job is to prove the problem.
Be crystal clear on:
The problem
For whom
How often it happens
What it costs them
What they do today instead
Then define your ICP like you actually know them.
Not “busy professionals”.
Not “health conscious consumers”.
Real people.
Real context.
Real behaviour.
Then answer the question investors are always thinking:
Why you? Why now?
Why you have earned the right to solve this.
Why now is the moment this becomes inevitable.
And explain why it matters to you.
Not to be emotional.
To be believable.
Because if it doesn’t matter to you, you’ll get blown off course the moment it gets tricky.
And it always gets tricky.
One practical tip pre-seed founders need
Stop pitching features.
Pitch the switch.
Why would someone stop doing what they do today and start doing what you want them to do?
If you can’t explain that clearly, you don’t have a proposition.
You have hope.
If you’re seed / Series A
Now your job changes.
At this stage, the story matters less.
The evidence matters more.
Show me traction.
And show me you understand what is driving it.
Not just “we grew”.
But why you grew.
What assumption turned out to be true?
What didn’t work, and what you changed?
Because traction without understanding is fragile.
Traction with understanding is repeatable.
And that’s what investors pay for.
Another practical tip
Bring your traction back to decisions.
Investors trust founders who can say:
“We believed X.”
“We tested it.”
“We learned Y.”
“So we did Z.”
That sequence reduces risk.
And reducing risk is the real job of your pitch.
The part founders avoid (but investors love)
Exit.
Most founders don’t mention it because it feels “too early”.
But investors want to know you understand the game you’re in.
Especially VCs.
They are in it for the money.
So you need to show you’re thinking about money.
That does not mean you pretend you know exactly who will acquire you.
Plans change.
Markets change.
But you should still be able to say:
“Here’s how value gets realised.”
Examples of what that can look like:
Strategic acquisition: who benefits from buying you, and why?
Roll-up / consolidation: is this a category where bigger players acquire smaller ones?
Platform adjacency: who already owns the customer relationship you’re building into?
Even a simple line helps:
“If we execute, the most logical acquirers are X, Y, Z because we give them A, B, C.”
It signals maturity.
It signals commercial realism.
It signals you understand the investor’s outcome.
Story is fine.
Team is a must.
Insight shows you get it.
But the investor needs to believe:
There is a path to getting paid.
The pitch structure I’d recommend
If you want a simple structure that works across stages:
The problem
Make it specific. Make it costly. Make it urgent.The customer
Who exactly. When exactly. Why now.The current alternative
What they do today. Why it’s not good enough.Your solution
One sentence. Not ten.Why you’ll win
Your unfair advantage. Your insight. Your proof.Traction or proof
Evidence for where you are today.The plan
What happens next. What you’ll prove next.The economics
How money flows. What scales. What improves with time.The exit logic
How value gets realised for investors.The ask
How much you’re raising. What it funds. What milestones it buys.
A final point founders forget
Investors back people they trust.
People who make decisions based on justifiable assumptions.
And adapt when reality hits and changes everything.
So the best pitches don’t try to sound certain.
They prove they’re competent under uncertainty.
If you’re pitching soon, ask yourself:
Am I making belief inevitable?
Or am I just trying to sound impressive?
Because the difference shows immediately.
All of this is easy to nod along to in theory.
The difference is seeing it applied, pitch by pitch, decision by decision.
So instead of just telling you, I’m going to demonstrate it.
Over the coming days, I’ll be uploading a series of 1:1 pitch clips with
real, direct feedback.
You can directly see what works and what doesn’t.
Keep an eye out here:
1) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john.b.stapleton/
2) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnbstapleton
