How to explain your startup so corporates actually listen

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A founder walks into a boardroom and starts to pitch:

“It’s a revolutionary AI-powered, blockchain-enabled platform...”

Five minutes in, the room is lost. The CEO’s eyes flick to her phone. The CFO leans back, arms crossed. The pitch is a bust – not because the product is bad, but because it’s not being explained in the right way.

Corporate buyers don’t think like startup founders. They don’t care about your tech stack or algorithm. They care about one thing: “what does this do for me?”

If you can’t answer that clearly, you’ll lose to a worse product with a better pitch (and it happens all the time). Here’s how to fix it.

Step 1: Focus on their problems

If you want a corporate buyer to listen, you need to start with what matters to them: their problems.

The mistake most founders make is they jump straight into how their product works instead of why it’s needed. But no one buys a solution until they feel the problem.

So if you’re selling fraud detection software to banks, don’t start with: “We use an AI-powered anomaly detection system to prevent fraud in real-time.”

Instead, start with: “Every year, banks suffer from fraud, and most don’t even know when it’s happening.”

Now you have their attention – because you focused on recognising a problem first.

Now that you’ve done that, you need to dig in. How can you make the problem more painful? How can you show the real consequences of not taking action? You can do that with data.

“The average fraud case goes undetected for 206 days, and cost Australian banks $10.2 billion last year alone.”

Now how does that sound? More tangible? More urgent. It should. You’ve taken the problem and forced them to ask: “Can we afford not to fix this?” Suddenly, your product isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a business risk.

Step 2: Be clear on your solution

Most startups focus on what they’ve built, but the best ones take the problem and show how they solve it.

Imagine you run a cybersecurity startup with an AI-powered anomaly detection system. You could pitch it in two ways:

  • 1. Tech-focused: “Our proprietary AI-powered anomaly detection platform leverages deep learning to identify real-time fraud.”
  • 2. Outcome-focused: “Most companies don’t know they’ve been hacked until it’s too late. We stop fraud before it happens by automatically checking every transaction to protect your customers.”

Which one gets attention? The second. Every time.

The first assumes the audience already understands why your product matters. The second clearly explains why the product is useful for them.

That clarity is so important. Here’s a simple rule: if a 12-year-old wouldn’t understand why it matters, rewrite it.

To do this well, it helps to have some structure. You can use this sentence to get your statement:

We [give you benefits] by [simple explanation of how].

For example:

  • Supply chain optimisation → “We cut delivery delays and save you millions each year by predicting disruptions before they happen.”
  • AI-powered hiring → “We create 40% more effective engineering teams by spotting top candidates to hire that you’d otherwise miss.

When you do these explanations, your goal isn’t to impress them with complexity, it’s to make your solution feel obvious. The best pitches make people think, *“why aren’t we already using this?” *

That means your pitch needs to be:

  • Simple. Make it clear. Instead of saying “Our AI optimises customer engagement,” say “We turn one-star reviews into loyal customers.
  • Concrete. Use data and evidence. Instead of “We improve security,” say “Your company is losing $10M a year to fraud. We stop the leak.”
  • Emotional. Make them feel. Instead of listing features, tell them about a company that cut costs by 70% by using your product.

Focus in on the outcome they achieve, and the benefit of achieving that. Then you can better explain what you do in a way they care about.

Step 3: Match to the right person

Different parts of the organisation will have different pain points.

So if you want your pitch to land, you need to address those pain points in a way that speaks directly to each stakeholder. Make sure you know who you’re meeting with before you go in to pitch.

Executives care about risk and ROI. They’re asking, “How does this impact the company’s bottom line?” So, after showing the cost of fraud, you might say:

"If your fraud detection system catches threats even a month sooner, you could save millions in lost revenue and regulatory fines."

Managers focus on efficiency and resource allocation. They need to know if your solution will make their jobs easier, not harder. So, for them, you might say:

"Our system integrates seamlessly with your existing banking infrastructure, reducing manual fraud investigations by 70% and freeing up your team for higher-value tasks."

End-users (such as bank fraud analysts)worry about usability and performance. If your product slows them down, they won’t use it. So, reassure them with something like:

"Instead of sifting through thousands of transactions manually, our platform flags high-risk activity in real time, letting your team focus on only the cases that matter."

Technical teams need to know it’s scalable and secure. They’ll ask, “Will this work within our tech stack? Can it handle real-world demands?” Address this with:

"Built with enterprise-grade security and designed to process millions of transactions daily, our system scales as your bank grows—without compromising speed or accuracy."

Each of these messages focuses on the same product. But by framing it through the lens of different stakeholders’ concerns, you move from a generic pitch to a tailored business case. One that makes each decision-maker feel like your solution was built for them.

Step 4: Show proof you can deliver

Now they’re interested. But interest isn’t enough.

Even if a corporate buyer understands your product, that doesn’t mean they’ll buy it. Most of the time, the biggest obstacle isn’t whether they like your product, it’s whether they feel you can be trusted to deliver on it.

To do that, you need proof, and the fastest way to build credibility is through numbers. Let’s say you sell a tool that reduces customer churn. You could say:

“One of our clients cut churn by 27% in six months.”

That’s good, but better yet, make it concrete in dollars saved:

“One of our clients saved $4.8M in lost revenue by cutting churn 27%.”

Other strong types of proof:

  • Case studies: “Company X was losing $2M a year. We fixed it in 90 days.”
  • Logos: “We work with [well-known company].”
  • Media: “Featured in [well-known media source]”
  • Testimonials: “Before [your product], we were drowning. Now, we’re growing 2X faster.”

One mistake to avoid: don’t overload them with data. One or two powerful proof points are better than a dozen weak ones.

Final thoughts

Most startups lose corporate deals because they expect the buyer to figure out why they need the product.

But corporate buyers don’t have time to untangle a complicated pitch. If they have to work to understand you, they won’t.

Make it simple. Start with the problem so they feel the pain. Focus on outcomes instead of features. Show them the cost of doing nothing and why you’re the right solution.

If they don’t get it, they won’t buy it. But if you make it clear, they’ll wonder how they ever lived without it.