Study goals
Our objective is to demonstrate that an incomplete pitch action that is not oriented toward the commercial process is the entrepreneur's first obstacle in commercializing scientific-tech solutions. Making a good pitch seems obvious and commonplace, but we demonstrate that it is not.
Relevance / originality
The entrepreneur intends and decides to pitch, but their action is deficient. There is a problem with the action that delays the start of the commercialization process. Therefore, this topic is current and timely for entrepreneurship in deep and soft tech startups.
Methodology / approach
This is a qualitative study. Data collection was carried out through direct, non-participant observation. We observed five Brazilian pitch events from September to December 2024. The sample consisted of 58 pitches from deep and soft tech startup entrepreneurs.
Main results
Our research findings revealed areas of focus for improvement in the pitching of startup, deep, and soft tech entrepreneurs, highlighting the importance of requesting the investment needed to scale the business and informing the investor of the expected return.
Theoretical / methodological contributions
Our research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the entrepreneurial action of the pitch is the practice of entrepreneurial judgment theory We propose reading the pitch not only as a rhetorical instrument, but also as an exercise in judgment embodied in
Social / management contributions
Our findings contribute to deep and soft tech startup entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial universities, incubators, and accelerators by identifying a latent training challenge: the need for training in business language.