Pitch Like Hollywood summary

So, let’s say you’re developing an idea for a new business. You have a product in mind, and you’ve done substantial research on its market viability. But there’s a missing ingredient that’s blocking you from taking your idea to the next level – funding. 

To get the financial backing you need to move your project along, you'll inevitably need to meet your potential partners or investors. This meeting is, of course, the pitch. In it, you have a short amount of face-to-face time to promote your idea. If your pitch goes down well in Hollywood, you’ll be asked to submit your script. In the business world, you’ll probably be asked to provide a business plan.

But before making it to that stage, you have a lot of work cut out for you. Developing an effective pitch takes time and effort. Luckily, the Hollywood pitch is made up of specific ingredients mixed together in a specific order. And by following the recipe, you’ll find yourself with a compelling story – with the potential to wow investors. This story is made up of three ingredients: the hook, logline, and three-act structure. Let’s take a look at these terms in more detail.

The hook and logline are by far the shortest parts of any good pitch – they’re the punchy, brief phrases that sum up the heart of your work. And your pitch should get to the hook as fast as possible. This is because your hook will be the most memorable part of your pitch. Just like the hook of a good pop song, it’s something short that will grab your listeners’ attention. 

After the hook comes the logline. It’s a little longer than your hook, but not too bogged down in details. You’ll save those for the three-act structure. With your logline, you’ll introduce the essence of your project without giving away the ending. A good logline often introduces the main characters of your pitch, and the conflict they are involved in. 

Before we move on, let’s quickly take a look at an example of a good hook and logline. Say a few friends decide to launch an app to tackle the perceived problem of shopping for nutritious food – but ending up with dishes that don’t taste so good. Their app is called “Nutritious N Delicious,” and the hook is as simple as it is memorable. It goes: “it can taste good and be good for you.” Simple enough, right? Their logline is equally powerful and yet leaves the listener wanting to know more: “you can have your cake, and eat it too . . . and stay healthy just by pulling out your phone.” This sounds too good to be true, right? An app that accompanies you while grocery shopping, and somehow determines the nutrients and tastiness of any product on the shelf. 

Now, while the hook and logline may have reeled you in, you need more information before you’re ready to commit. How does the app work? What are the motivations of the developers? What expertise do they have in the field? And how did they come up with the idea in the first place? These questions are answered most effectively by the power of storytelling, specifically recounted in three acts with a beginning, middle, and end. 

The three-act structure starts off with act one, in which your characters are introduced, as well as the conflict they find themselves confronted with. Then, in act two, the conflict escalates, and failed attempts to solve it are presented. But it is not until act three that the conflict is finally resolved.

The three-act structure works just as well in the business world as it does in Hollywood. Let’s take a closer look at the three-act structure that the developers of Nutritious N Delicious put together. In act one, the characters are introduced. The first is one of the company’s founders, a doctor. He worked at a hospital for years. It was there that he witnessed first-hand the debilitating diseases caused by bad nutrition. 

He tells the story of how he met one of the other founders, a chef at a fancy restaurant. They connected over their mutual disdain for unhealthy food. But when the chef told him he was coming up with recipes that were both tasty and healthy, the doctor was skeptical. In no time at all, the chef whipped together gourmet-quality recipes made only with healthy ingredients. Both the doctor and his girlfriend, a computer scientist, were astounded by the food. While eating, she remarked that they should create an app. Within the space of an hour, the company was born.

So, as we’ve seen, act one is all about introducing the protagonists and the conflict they face. In act two, the founders dive into the conflict in more detail. Sure, there are plenty of apps where you can scan barcodes to figure out a food’s nutritional value. And there are also apps that show ratings of restaurants based on how good their food is. But no one has yet tried to combine these two things    into one app. So the only way to figure out nutritional and healthy foods is to either use multiple apps, conduct hours of research, or be forced to test out healthy recipes to see how tasty they are. It’s not convenient at all, especially when you’re hungry.

By breaking down the pain points of the status quo, act two reveals how there’s a real need for the unique service that the app provides. Finally, in act three, resolution arrives. Imagine an app that allows you to simply scan a barcode in the supermarket – and receive both nutritional and taste-based ratings for the item in question. It’s not rocket science, and wouldn’t need a huge investment. But it sure has the potential to make a lot of money. And what they’re sure to communicate in act three is that they’ve obtained data showing that millennials would download the app in droves. 

And thus concludes the Nutritious N Delicious Hollywood pitch. It can taste good and be good for you. If you were a venture capitalist present at the pitch, would you invest?