Public meeting / communications and entrepreneurship / An example pitch given by Reid Hoffman - state the problem, how the world is solving it, and how you do differently

Reference

• Summary: In this essay, I have paraphrased the pitch given by Reid Hoffman with the support from Adam Grant. This pitch was given in the context of a conversation on how to pitch better.

• Publishing note: this article was originally published by Marcio Taboca Galli on Hackernoon - The VC pitch: What’s wrong with the world, what is being deployed, and how you do differently

• Parent project: Communications and entrepreneurial action

• Participants: Marcio S Galli
• Text language: en-us
• Tags: Pitch, VC, Communication,
• Document status: Copyright, draft; This is highly influenced by and/or may have parts of works from Adam Grant and Reid Hoffman

The VC pitch: What’s wrong with the world, what is being deployed, and how you do differently

The following is a summary of Reid Hoffman’s pitch given to Adam Grant at the video session entitled Success and Originality. The pitch was given to Adam Grant, author of Originals; that provided feedback on good points and advices in terms of uniqueness (originality) of the idea, plus other relevant factors for scaling a business:

At Adam Grant: Success and Originality - Opportunity at Work, pitch, by Reid Hoffman (35m50s)

Reid’s pitch “Opportunity Work”

• Organization/idea: Opportunity at work;
• Entrepreneur: Reid Hoffman;
• Investor: Adam Grant, audience, and you;
• Purpose: pitch about the business, example of a pitch, analysis, and educational.

State the problem

• Serious inclusion problem in the tech industry, diversity inclusion problem, how to change that?
• Adam Grant ❤ that Reid used about 1/3 of the pitch focusing in the problem (and situation)

Situation

• Normally a corporate/company recognizes a bunch of important work related to this. Yet, it’s a problem to solve the situation and to have traction at the end of each year (now). Therefore, Reid articulates that a deficit is in place;

• There is a network of bootcamps, actually being deployed: within 6 weeks you can start a career in the tech industry: db admin, web developers, QA, etc. Reid recognizes that bootcamps are recognized and existent and who they currently work.

Opportunity

• These bootcamps exists, but they are not focused in inclusion; because most of the participants are the ones that only can afford. Therefore, the solution is to have bootcamps that are focused in inclusion;

• Deployed through a scholarship fund, focused in diversity and inclusion;

• This is like, not a sum but an overlap between bootcamps and inclusion and scholarships.

The mechanics (requirements, unique strategies to make it work)

• A reputation system around at the network of of the bootcamps;
• A selection algorithm for the right folks to get into the camps;
• A system for participants, a pipeline, towards the jobs.