Stop Pitching Your Product. Start Pitching Your Business.

If there’s one thing I see over and over again, it’s this:

Founders pitch their product, not their business.

And honestly? That’s a problem. Because when you’re in front of investors, they’re not just buying into what your app does. They’re betting on the business behind it — your moat, market, model, and ability to grow and win.

That’s precisely what I’ll talk about tomorrow night at the Startup&Angels Investors Pitch & Panel Night in Sydney.

Join us if you’re an early-stage founder (or just startup-curious). Use the code COMMUNITYFRIENDS for a discount. Should be a cracking night of pitches, panels, and straight-up truth about what investors are looking for.

In the meantime, here’s one of my favorite tools to help you pitch like a pro:

Peter Thiel’s 7 Questions Every Startup Must Answer.

These questions help you stress-test your startup and build a business case, not just a flashy demo. Let’s run through them together.

1. The Engineering Question

Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?

Let’s be real — most ideas aren’t original. But the best ones feel like magic. Thiel is looking for the 10x play here, not just “Uber but for dog walkers.”

Your job: explain what makes your tech (or model, UX, or data advantage) radically better, not just slightly different.

Famous example: Tesla

While other car companies were building slightly better hybrids, Tesla built the first truly scalable electric car platform, with performance that beat combustion engines and a battery system that could power your house.

Ask yourself: Are we doing something that feels obvious in hindsight but impossible to most today?

2. The Timing Question

Why now?

Timing is everything. Too early? Nobody cares. Too late? Everyone’s already there.

Investors want to know: what’s changed recently that opens a new window of opportunity? Culture shift? Tech enabler? Regulation change?

Famous example: Airbnb

In 2008, during a global financial crisis, people needed extra income and were open to strangers paying to sleep on an air mattress. A cultural shift toward the sharing economy met a recession, and Airbnb rode the wave.

Ask yourself: What’s different about today's world that makes this startup inevitable?

3. The Monopoly Question

Are you starting with a significant share of a small market?

The big mistake was going after the entire $50B market on day one. Thiel wants to see that you’re laser-focused on dominating a niche: small market, huge share.

Why? Because monopolies win. And they start by being the best in a narrow corner before expanding outward.

Famous example: Facebook

It didn’t start as a social network for the whole world — it started with just Harvard. Then, Ivy League schools. Then U.S. colleges. That tight niche allowed Facebook to dominate before it expanded.

Ask yourself: Who do we serve first, better than anyone else?

4. The People Question

Do you have the right team?

Investors aren’t just investing in ideas. They’re investing in you. And your team.

Are you missionaries or mercenaries? Builders or bluffers?

If the team doesn’t feel all—in, technically, commercially, and emotionally, you’ve got a people problem before you even hit market.

Famous example: PayPal Mafia

Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman — PayPal didn’t just build a product; it built one of the most legendary founding teams in Silicon Valley history. The founders went on to create LinkedIn, YouTube, Tesla, and more.

Ask yourself: Would I want to work with this team through five years of chaos and still laugh at the end?

5. The Distribution Question

Do you have a way to deliver your product to customers?

This is where most founders squirm. “We’ll go viral” is not a plan. “We’ll post on Product Hunt” is not a strategy.

Thiel wants to see the distribution figured out early. Sales motion, partnerships, content engine, performance marketing — whatever your GTM weapon is, know and own it.

Famous example: Dropbox

Before they had big enterprise sales, Dropbox used a simple viral referral loop — “Get more storage by inviting friends.” It worked so well that it drove over 2.8 million direct invites within 30 days

Ask yourself: How will we get to our first 1,000 users? And how will we get to 100,000?

6. The Durability Question

Will your position be defensible in 10–20 years?

What you’re building should get stronger over time. Not weaker.

Moats matter. Could be brand, IP, network effects, data, switching costs — anything that compounds and makes it harder for others to catch up.

Famous example: Google

Their search engine didn’t just work well — it got better every time someone used it. With massive data scale and a world-class ad platform, Google created a self-reinforcing flywheel that is durable for 20+ years.

Ask yourself: What advantage will we have in year five that we don’t have yet?

7. The Secret Question

Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?

This is the deepest one. What do you believe that the rest of the world doesn’t? What’s the broken assumption you’re flipping? What’s hiding in plain sight?

These are the secrets that great startups are built on.

Famous example: Stripe

Everyone thought payments were a solved (and boring) problem. But the Collison brothers saw how painful it was for developers to integrate payments. They believed payments should be a few lines of code and were right.

Ask yourself: What do we know that the market doesn’t?

Final Thought

These seven questions are like a cheat code. They force you to go from feature talk to founder thinking — and that’s where investors start to lean in.

So next time you’re getting ready to pitch, try this:

Don’t just show me what your product does.

Show me what your business can become.

See you at the panel tomorrow night.