Buzzword Buster: Reverse Pitching

Reverse pitching is a method designed to experience the perspective of someone else’s idea.

Corporates understand that they need to become more innovative in order to survive in today’s fast-moving market economy. The question is how.

The quick answer: they need more entrepreneurs. Or at least people who think and act like entrepreneurs. So how do you transform your company culture into a more entrepreneurial mindset?

Given that we live and breathe entrepreneurship at Impact Hub, we are often approached by corporates to help them figure out this question. So we developed a method dubbed “reverse pitching” that allows corporate leaders to experience the perspective of an entrepreneur first-hand.

How does it work?

The managers receive the business plan of a real start-up and are given 1 hour to prepare a pitch as if it were their own idea. When the time is up, they present “their” idea with a mini pitch to the actual founders who are sitting in the audience. More, they need to come up with smart answers as they are grilled with critical questions by the crowd.

The results are phenomenal.

The managers get a very real experience of how it feels to be an entrepreneur, defending their idea on stage. The start-ups, on the other hand, get valuable feedback on how someone else interprets their idea based on their business plan.

The most important result, however, is that the method creates a setting where managers and entrepreneurs can meet at eye-level. Having taken on the reverse perspective allows for deep empathy and a shared language for them to exchange ideas as peers. It’s a bit like the debate club where you take on a completely foreign perspective to learn how to think outside your usual mindset – and thus gain a much more holistic perspective.

The method works so well that many corporates have started to apply it internally and reverse pitch their own innovation projects to each other. I invite you to try it out and experience the effect yourself!