"I have a cure for cancer"

"I have a cure for cancer," the founder continued passionately, sharing the specifications, biochemistry, how it worked, and his journey of scientific discovery.

However, the judges were unimpressed and deemed it a failure. "Who is your customer, and what problem do you solve?" they asked. The founder believed that patients in their final stage would pay a high price for the cure. The judges shook their heads in dismay, questioning if the law allowed them to sell the cure without a clinical trial. The founder explained that a principal investigator from the national hospital was eager to run the clinical trial with them. Still, someone whispered that he might expect the startup to pay for the trial.

According to the lean launchpad methodology, this pitch was a failure. It's hard to believe that the chosen customer segment would provide a steady stream of revenue to fund the clinical trial.

A better pitch would sound like this: "Pfizer is in the process of discovering a cure for cancer. They experimented with 'A' and 'B', but neither met expectations. We believe that our approach 'C' is a breakthrough that provides the outcome they need - a cure for cancer."

In this pitch, the customer segment is believable, and it's easy to infer that there are more pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, making the market size larger. Large enterprises like Pfizer have market access and funding to support expensive clinical trials.

How would you have pitched the cure for cancer?

(Credits: AI-generated image)