The Tale of “Two Pitches”

I recall (not fondly) a pitch I did to venture capitalists (VC).  The idea started as an exploratory thought, which I had been noodling over for a while.  Once, I could coherently explain the idea to myself, I bounced it with a selective few of my MBA/Business community cohort.  After some good discussions and basic market research, we agreed that it was a tangible idea – a team was formed.  Like good entrepreneurs we started working on the business model, canvas…etc.

Two days prior to the VC presentation, we had to submit the idea and a 30 sec video.  Finally, the day arrived, we had two minutes to make it happen.  We had a plan, the narrative and financials to back it up.  Then it happened – “We don’t believe there is a market for it”, said one of the two investors and rest of the time was spent justifying numbers, our time was up!

A year or so later, I was asked to present at one of the world’s largest trade shows in Las Vegas: CES – Consumer Electronic Show.  I was to run a booth, presenting an idea that was ahead of its time (based on market maturity) by at least 2 years or so.  The demo was a hodgepodge of nascent technology to entice early movers in the industry.  In approximately 4 days at CES, I pitched and demoed the idea to many C-suite folks, technologist, academics, government officials, Non-profits, competitors…so on.  One question came up often, “We don’t believe there is a market for it”, yet in the 4 days, my pitch and demo generated over 200+ leads and a solid sales funnel.
Why did one fail and the other succeed; Perseverance – Nope, Science!

The timeframe between my two pitches was spent researching the human brain and how it interacts with information.  Culmination of this research is:

1. Humans are “irrational” beings with cognitive biases built in.
2. We make decisions through our body (i.e gut feelings) and then justify them with facts to our brain.

How the brain works (watered down):

1. Amygdala – Fight-or-Flight i.e. Emotional brain that sends distress signals, if it interprets the information as “Dangerous”.
2. Thalamus – Responsible for sending the information from sensory receptors to the proper part of the brain to be processed.
3. Neocortex – Thinking brain where the logic, decision-making occurs, among other higher functions. 


How this relates to pitching an idea:

When you're pitching an idea, your Neocortex is sending out information.  The receivers Thalamus is distributing the information to the necessary part of the brain.  Some trigger during the distribution process can lead to an Amygdala Hijack of the receivers brain.

What's an Amygdala Hijack – Once the Thalamus dispatches the information, if the Amygdala senses danger, it will kick off fight-or-flight decision, before the Neocortex has time to overrule it.

If this happens - You’ve lost your audience!

How to Recover from the Amygdala High Jack:

Stay Tuned, as frames are coming in Part-2!