Design Thinking

The Pitch

Conduct a Google search on “Pitching an Idea” and you’ll find no end to the experts giving advice and templates for slide decks. One thing is clear, a successful pitch must engage the audience around the challenge, and convince them that you have solved it. This involves story-telling and persuasion - two skills that entire college courses are built around, in fact you can find several online that you can take.

A General Pitch Outline

Richard Holmam at Medium says that “The Pitch” requires Four Essential Ingredients:

• The Challenge is the business or strategic or brand problem you are being invited to solve, summed up in a single sentence.

• The KeyInsight is the key to unlocking the the problem. It’s the way into the creative, the foundation of your concept, the reason your idea makes sense.

• The Idea is … your idea, but described in the single most elegant and evocative and compelling sentence you can think of.

• The Execution is where you enable the audience to envision your idea with all the color and passion and verve that you do.

Design Thinking-Informed Pitch

Your Design Thinking process should provide you much of what you need to build your pitch deck:

• An engaging Design Challenge Problem - the original HMW

• The empathy research that validates the problem

• Stakeholder quotes, a persona, and journey map that describes the pain points

• Key Insights that led to your reframing of the problem and your innovative ideation

• A great solution that you prototyped and was validated by stakeholders

• An analysis of the competition

• A prototype to demo (consider doing so in a video)

Design Thinking Pitch Deck (8 to 10 Slides)

Use this pitch deck to sell your idea to an existing company (intrapreneurship). If you are building a business and seeking investors (entrepreneurship), consider Guy Kawasaki’s approach.

Feel free to utilize GenAI tools like Gamma to build your presentation.

1. Title: Introduce your product brand and what it does. Optionally you can briefly introduce your team here.
   Example: “We are Campus Valet and we’ll eliminate parking frustration on campus.”

2. Problem/Opportunity: Describe the pain that you‘re alleviating or the pleasure you‘re providing. Here you show the importance of the problem you are confronting. Include proof from your Empathy Research.
   *Students studying Systems Innovation class should include their Systems Map and levers here.
   Example: “Our research indicates that 70 percent of students park vehicles on campus, and 90 percent of those we surveyed spend an average of two hours a week trolling for parking. Campus Valet can help….”

3. Value Proposition: Explain your Reframe. Explain the value of the pain you alleviate or the value of the pleasure you provide. Here is where you show the impact your solution will have on solving the problem.
   Example: “We give back the time lost in trolling (64 hour per school year), help students get to class on time, and open parking opportunities for others…”

4. Underlying Magic: Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product. Here you show the unique, creative, innovative nature of your solution.
   Example: “Our innovative solution blends technologies used big cities, with transportation systems used in Theme Parks for a brand new perspective on campus parking…”

5. User Experience: Show how your solution is used by demonstrating your prototype.

6. Competitive Analysis: What are the alternatives and how do they compare to your solution?

7. Business Model: What will your solution cost? How will your solution sustain itself? Who’s paying for it? Who will profit? How? Here you address concerns over feasibility (ease of implementation) and viability (sustainability over time).
   Example: Campus Valet requires an initial investment of $30,000 for two trams, 40 near-campus parking spaces, space, and hiring 12 part-time student valets and tram drivers for recurring costs of $120k annually. These costs will be easily covered by the fees of customers at $20 per park.

8. Financial Projection and Key Metrics: Provide a 5-year forecast containing not only dollars but key metrics such as the number of customers and conversion rate.
   Example: Launching in 2027, FSU would invest $420k to launch, expecting 200 customers a week in the first year income would amount to $128,000, growing to 300 weekly customers in the second year, would bring in $192,000, bring us to breaking even in year three, and turning a profit by the end of year 4.

9. Conclusion: Restate the name of your company, your slogan, and provide a QR code to more information.