How to Stress-Test Your Pitch Before the Meeting

You've rehearsed the deck. You know the numbers. You've practised the answer to "what's your moat?" But there's a category of question investors ask that most founders have never thought about — and it's not on any pitch prep checklist.

Why Preparation Usually Fails

Most pitch prep is defensive. You anticipate the questions you've been asked before and polish the answers. The problem: investors aren't asking the questions you expect. They're probing the assumptions underneath your answers.

The Pre-Mortem Method

Pre-mortem analysis — developed by psychologist Gary Klein — asks you to imagine the project has already failed, then reconstruct why. Applied to pitching, it looks like this:

1. 01

   Set the scene

   It is 18 months from now. The company failed. Not ran out of money — failed. What happened?

2. 02

   Write without editing

   The constraint is important. Your first answers reveal what you actually believe, not what you wish were true.

3. 03

   Categorise by type

   Group your failure reasons: market timing, distribution, defensibility, unit economics, team, regulation.

4. 04

   Prepare answers

   Don't memorise a script. Have a real answer to what kills this in each category and what you are doing about it.

The Fermi Check on Your Market

The single most common fatal flaw in pitches we've analyzed: unqualified TAM claims. A Fermi estimation takes 5 minutes and tells you if your market number is real.

• →How many companies/people fit your exact ICP?
• →What percentage of them have the problem you solve right now?
• →Of those, what percentage would actually pay for your solution?
• →What would they pay per year?

Multiply those four numbers. That's your real TAM. If it's 90% smaller than what's in your deck, you have 24 hours to either fix the deck or build a better answer.