Beyond the Pitch: Why Storytelling is the Skill Every Founder Needs

“Pitch me your startup in 3 minutes.”

I’ve said this more times than I can count. 

Over the years, I’ve coached, mentored, and adjudicated hundreds of startup pitches—in the EU, Canada, Pakistan, and now in Mexico. I’ve helped student founders refine their decks, distill their business models, and captivate audiences in under 180 seconds.

I started, like many entrepreneurship educators, with a strong emphasis on pitching: how to speak with clarity, communicate traction, and deliver a winning impression.

Pitching was my lens. It was precise. Strategic. Measurable. It worked. Until I began noticing something was off.

Some of the best pitches I heard came from startups with weak foundations. And some of the most powerful ideas—born from real lived experiences—never landed because the story was never told.

Pitching: Powerful, Precise—But Incomplete

Let me be clear: I’m not abandoning pitching. In fact, I still love teaching and adjudicating it and coaching the young and aspiring entrepreneurs. I believe that there’s something magical about those 90 to 180 seconds. A well-crafted pitch can open doors, captivate investors, and start powerful conversations. It teaches students discipline, structure, and how to communicate under pressure.

I’ve seen shy students transform into confident speakers, and teams take rough ideas and shape them into investor-ready business cases. Pitching builds real-world skills that translate into any industry or role.

But here’s the insight I’ve grown into:

Pitching teaches you how to sell the idea. Storytelling teaches you how to sustain the vision.

What I began noticing was that the students who won pitch competitions weren’t always the ones with the most meaningful ideas. Those with deeply personal, purpose-driven projects often struggled to “perform” because their story wasn’t being heard—it was being edited out.

Storytelling: The Shift That Changed My Teaching

The real turning point came when I revisited Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. His central idea hit me differently this time:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

That simple truth reshaped how I approached entrepreneurship education.

I reflected on my own journey—why I co-founded startups, why I stayed in the classroom, why I kept returning to early-stage innovation. And I realized that I was always drawn to the deeper story behind the idea. The why.

Once I shifted my approach in the classroom—from pitch-centric to purpose-driven—I saw transformation in my students as well.

From My Own Classrooms: A Story That Stuck

A student team I worked with in Lahore had developed a mobile platform to help young mothers in rural Pakistan access telehealth services.

Their pitch was solid—packed with market analysis, mobile penetration stats, and a scalable model. But it lacked emotional gravity.

When I asked them, “Why this idea?”—one student shared a story. Her aunt had lost a newborn in a village near Bahawalpur due to lack of access to timely care. That experience haunted her—and motivated her to ensure no other family faced that pain.

We restructured the pitch. We started with the story.

We didn’t dramatize it. We grounded the entire business case in it. Suddenly, the idea had urgency, empathy, and weight. The judges in my class leaned in. Listeners remembered the message days later. And the team connected more deeply with their mission.

That’s the moment I knew: storytelling isn’t soft—it’s a startup strategy.

Where It All Began: Pitching vs. Storytelling

To understand why pitching dominates our teaching, we need to understand its roots.

Pitching

Pitching was born in Silicon Valley, where competition for investor attention led to the “elevator pitch.” Time was scarce, so ideas had to be delivered quickly and convincingly. Experts like Guy Kawasaki and Dave McClure helped shape the culture of concise, performance-based persuasion.

Pitching is about efficiency—getting attention, fast.

Storytelling

Storytelling is far older. It’s how humans have passed down knowledge, inspired movements, and built communities. In entrepreneurship, it re-emerged through contemporary thinkers like Simon Sinek, Nancy Duarte, and Annette Simmons—who reminded us that stories are how people connect, remember, and act.

Storytelling is about meaning—it builds trust, loyalty, and emotional engagement.

Why I Now Teach Both

Today, I still teach pitching. But now, I start with story.

I encourage my students to:

• Clarify their why before building their how

• Share what makes the problem personal

• Use data to support, not replace, their story

Because in today’s saturated, attention-deficit world:

The pitch informs. The story transforms. The pitch is the hook. The story is the heart.

When students own their story, their confidence grows—not from memorized slides, but from internal alignment.

Why We Still Struggle to Teach Storytelling

Despite its power, storytelling remains underused in entrepreneurship education. Why?

• It’s harder to grade and assess

• It feels less technical or business-like

• Many entrepreneurship educators were never trained in narrative building

• It requires vulnerability—and that’s not always easy in academic spaces

But if we’re serious about developing purpose-driven founders, we need to make space for storytelling.

We must teach our students to speak not only with logic but also with authenticity.

Conclusions: What We’re Really Building

My evolution—from pitch-focused mentor to storytelling-centered educator—has reshaped my own purpose.

I still love a sharp pitch, but now I look for the story behind it—the one rooted in values, lived experience, and vision.

Because people don’t follow slides—they follow belief. And belief begins with story.

What role has storytelling played in your entrepreneurial journey? Did you begin with pitch—and evolve into purpose?

Let’s share, reflect, and help our students build not just ventures—but voices.

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The author is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Tec de Monterrey and is a graduate of Maastricht University, the Netherlands (PhD in Innovation) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland (MS in Entrepreneurship and Innovation).