Last night at a pitch event in Lisbon, a founder got up and told us about the best moment of his career. A client, someone who had lost the ability to speak, told him they had decided not to euthanize themselves because, with his company Halo’s technology, they could speak again.
The room went quiet. Then it leaned in.
That’s what a hook does.
Hook me or lose me
A hook isn’t a gimmick. It’s the moment you give your audience a reason to stay. In film, it’s the scene where you realize what’s at stake. In a pitch, it’s the line that makes a room of distracted strangers decide you’re worth their attention.
The other founders last night skipped it entirely. They introduced themselves. They led with market cap. They opened with slides. I don’t remember any of it because they never gave me a reason to.
Your audience doesn’t owe you attention. There’s a short window before they’re gone, and no amount of polish will buy it back. A hook isn’t optional. It’s the price of entry.
A hook can take a few forms. A surprising statistic that reframes how big the problem is. A question the audience is already asking themselves but hasn’t said out loud. Or, the most powerful, a short story that opens a wound.
You don’t need all three. You need one, and you need it in your first thirty seconds.
Say less, land more
The other thing I watched happen last night: founders trying to say everything.
I understand the impulse. You’ve spent months—maybe years—building this. It feels essential to share everything.
But here’s what I know from coaching: the more you say, the less they remember.
A two-minute pitch can’t hold your full origin story, your TAM, your roadmap, and your competitive moat. It needs the thing that makes someone lean forward and want to ask a question. That’s it. One clear problem, one compelling solution, one reason to believe you’re the person to solve it.
Most pitches I see could be cut by 50% and be twice as effective. The discipline isn’t in adding, it’s in choosing. Kill your darlings before the audience does it for you.
Presence over performance
Here’s what separated that founder from everyone else: he wasn’t performing. He was present. There’s a difference, and audiences feel it immediately.
You can memorize a flawless script and deliver it without a single stumble. But if there’s no emotion behind it, you’re a robot. And robots don’t move rooms.
Enthusiasm is contagious. So is its absence. The founders last night who fell flat weren’t necessarily bad speakers, they were disconnected from what they were saying. When you stop caring, the room stops caring.
What presence looks like in practice
The nerves are real. But the impulse to hide behind slides or data, or an overly rehearsed script will kill your aliveness. If you’re looking for an investor, you have to connect with an investor. That means making eye contact, not staring over heads. It means hooking them with something compelling from the start. It means holding back just enough so they want to lean in and ask for more.
Not every startup will have a story like Halo’s. But every founder has a reason they’re building what they’re building, something they believe in enough to stand up in front of strangers and fight for. That belief is your hook. Your job is to find it and lead with it.
If you’re preparing for a pitch—to investors, at a conference, or in a room that matters—I can help you get there.
My Pitch Review Session is a 90-minute private coaching session built for exactly this. Before we meet, I review your pitch deck or a recorded run-through so we can skip the setup and get straight to work. Together we identify what’s landing and what’s losing the room, and you leave with a clear action plan you can use immediately. You’ll also get a copy of my book, Presenting Presenting.
Book a free consultation and we’ll figure out what you need.
THE BIG PRINT
The more you say, the less they remember.
TAKE IT FROM… Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States.
Lincoln had 272 words and two hours of competition. He’s the only one anyone remembers.
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