What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Made to Stick
Assuming that a technically accurate pitch about your company is enough for investors, customers, or your own team to remember and act on it is the specific trap Made to Stick names, and it's an easy one to fall into when you know every detail matters to you.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Find the single core point and strip everything else away
A message that tries to communicate everything about your company ends up remembered as nothing; identifying the one essential point and cutting everything that doesn't serve it makes your pitch far more likely to stick.
A founder's pitch covers the product, the market, the team, and the financials with equal weight, and investors walk away without a single clear takeaway.
Identify the one sentence you most want someone to remember after hearing your pitch, and cut anything that doesn't support it.
Break the pattern people expect, to actually earn attention
A pitch that fits smoothly into the format every other pitch follows slides past without registering; one that genuinely surprises or violates an assumption earns the attention needed to be remembered.
A founder opens a pitch exactly the way every other pitch in the room opens, and it blends into a long day of similar-sounding pitches.
Identify one assumption your audience likely holds about companies like yours, and open by directly challenging it.
Make the idea concrete and give it built-in credibility
Abstract claims are hard to remember and hard to believe on their own; grounding your pitch in a concrete, checkable detail makes it stick on its own merits rather than relying purely on your own credibility.
A founder claims their product is "transformative" without a single specific, checkable detail behind the claim, and the word slides past without leaving an impression.
Replace one abstract claim in your pitch with a specific, concrete detail someone could actually picture or verify.
Carry the idea with genuine emotion and a story, not a dry fact
Facts alone rarely move people to remember or act; connecting your pitch to real emotion and a concrete story people can retell makes it far more likely to spread past the room you're in.
Covering every important fact and making one idea truly memorable aren't opposites — a memorable core idea often carries the important facts further than a complete but forgettable list would.
Name one thing, honestly
If someone had to describe your company in one sentence a week after hearing your pitch, what would you want that sentence to be?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Replace one abstract claim in your pitch with a specific, concrete detail someone could actually picture or verify.