Testimonials
I could. not. believe. how much this one-hour session leap-frogged my entire business, let alone my pitch deck and script, from where I started. - J. Ballard, Founder
"I haven't gotten this much useful advice in ten hours anywhere else! Just astonishing value." - Michael Thompson, Co-founder
"I've practiced my pitch in front of all sorts of angel groups, and all their feedback put together might - might - have reached the level of what I got in an hour with Cameron." - Susan Elliott, Founder
"Your pitch coaching gave me a breakthrough in getting my investment opportunity across to investors. After 15 months pitching our way, your consulting helped us meet our funding goal within two months of our consulting together." - Alison McKenzie, Co-founder
"I used to spend ALL my time on my deck. I thought I could just wing the spoken part. But all I ever did was interfere with my deck and lose the listener OR just paraphrase it. I wasted the priceless opportunity to make my deck and my speech 'do a dance together.' Not anymore." - Sue Strong, co-founder
"Cameron and his team coached me into being the runaway success of every demo day I did. Now I finally see why I need to spend almost as much time on my spoken pitch - the content and the delivery - as on my deck!" - J. Schumacher, exited founder
Your startup's Story is literally everything
What's your single most important asset as a founder?
A powerfully crafted narrative framing your product-market fit and highlighting your strategy and team.
Inspire co-founders and other talent to join you.
Move investors to feel that your story simply sounds true.
Are you a foreign founder? To get a visa, you'll need a credible, professional business plan.
..and strong stories will bring you media exposure.
| Who's it for? | You need to get your ideas off the ground and into the fundamental pitch structure that maximizes the feedback you're able to get, to see what's missing, and, critically, know how to prioritize future work. | You know your existing deck can be better: better high-concept and Story, copywriting/persuasion, and visual ideas. A spoken script that complements your slides. | You want to advance to the next level: strong high-concept, persuasive slide text, and scripted, rehearsed spoken pitch content that crushes the dance your speaking must do with your slides. |
| Your Slides | From 0 to full deck of 15 slides | Pack every slide with punch: concept, persuasive copywriting, visual story directions. | Improved concepts, text, copywriting |
| Slide Content | Headlines, bullets, visual direction | Simplified, graspable text, improved persuasion, more visual direction | Improved concepts, persuasion, copywriting |
| Your Story | Version 1.0 Story Outline | Version 2.0 Story Refinement | Version 3.0 Maximum Story development |
| Your Spoken Script | Version 1.0 Spoken Script direction | Version 2.0 Spoken Script edits and direction | Version 3.0 - Final script as iterated through rehearsal |
| Startup Investment | $495 | $695 | $795 |
Head Founder Coach
“Story coupled with product development and messaging strategy is what I do. Increase the chances and speed of getting product-market fit, traction, investors, talent, and an exit.”
"No other founder coach has been deep inside both courtrooms and startups, or knows his way around the scientific method as well as the historical and even neural bases for Story. Cameron is the guy to help you make ANY case.”
-- T. Determan
Constructed from the unusual DNA of a trial lawyer and trainer, a jokester and speaker, a writer and acting coach, Cameron Powell applies the powerful High Performance Story method to coach founders on everything from their personal and professional stories to their stories about their team, product, and startup as a competitive investment
Questions and Answers
How to use character to tell stories
- Use Heroes. Maximize audience empathy by creating relatable stand-ins for the customer - and the investor
- Evoke Emotion. Learn how to make your audience really feel the Pain - the starting point of failure of most pitches
How to neatly connect the Pain to the Solution, Target Market, and Go-to-Market Slides
What founders do wrong with the Competition slide
- Are you using a 2x2 matrix? (Not recommended).
How to devise convincing go-to-market strategies
- How biz dev really works and how to make the partner pitch
- Founder origin stories - uncomfortable for most founders, but absolute catnip to journalists
- Content and guerrilla marketing strategies on a budget
In a sea of competing investment opportunities, how can you stand out?
- Investors see early-stage pitches every single day where the founders’ evidence of product-market fit and traction doesn’t dispel doubt.
- So how can you get a competitive advantage over your rival founders?
- You’re either among the 3% lucky enough to have the right connections -- or you have a strong story about your startup.
High Performance Startup Coach: Sell Your Startup to Anyone
Make your solution seem inevitable - and make investors fear missing out!
Everyone who wants to be associated with a startup — founders, employees, investors, partners — is a dreamer. They want to believe. They want to be part of something big or important or new. And there are powerful ways to appeal to those instincts — evidence-based ways.
The elements of story are just as present, and important, in the creative context of a startup company as they are in any movie or novel. Venture capitalists and angel investors are drawn like moths to the flame of a compelling evidence-based story, no matter how much they may insist they are creatures of Pure Reason.
Like everyone else of ambition, they chase trends. And because they want to be even bigger and more successful than they are - that is, because they're human - investors are suckers for a powerful story.
Even before I had success in helping startups raise millions from investors, I saw that in my own startup companies I was able to interpret and present our ideas more powerfully, and more clearly. What else is this product or feature or benefit or value proposition like? I would ask, What’s the analogy or metaphor that makes it relatable and that will drive it home?
In our High Performance Startup coaching, we harness classic story structure – ingrained in the neural pathways of human beings, the very thing that makes us human. We’ll show you how use that structure to convey the most crucial elements of a business plan — and the marketing brand that will help you to sell at every level.
And then we’ll create an evidence-based Story of great power and memorability. It will persuade, convince, and move those you wish to influence, from fellow founders and senior executives to programmers and partners.
You'll also get our Startup Founder Storytelling series. From telling your own origin story - which is catnip to investors and journalists - to how to differentiate and position your startup with advanced Hero's Journey Storytelling, you'll get competitive advantages you can't find anywhere else.
Questions?
Contact us with questions about our pitch coaching services.