TIR&D of R&D? How developed should a pitch be?

[Ewan McIntosh]

Rick Segal and I spent a memorable two days a couple of years back running around the Scottish Borders and talking social media and about some of the dire - and great - pitches he had seen in his time. He put me under the VC spotlight, too, with the venture I was undertaking at the time. You learn a lot on the sharp end :-)

Recently he wrote about one pitch for a mobile that was particularly refreshing:
Instead of endless droning on about market size, no competition, next generation web 2.0 long tail social media personalization, they just flipped me a movie and said put this on your bold and check this out. Perfect. If I like, we talk and all the rest of the stuff comes out in due course. If not, on to the next suit with a checkbook.

Now, in 4iP I've had my fair share of schtick for the online pitches site, which I still stand by: it gives a fairly quick, scannable, shareable impression not only of the idea but the clarity of thought of the person putting it forward.

People have bemoaned the fact that there's no space to upload PowerPoint stacks, jpegs and all manner of 'visualisation' that will help us see the concept clearer. But when I'm telling my mate about what it is I won't have your stack in my pocket - I need the sentence that I can tell them in order to get them hooked on your idea. Importantly, I need the sentence that I can tell my team, the legal, compliance and finance guys who need to 'get' your idea to do their jobs.

Nonetheless, if you were making a mobile app and it could be explained well in a sentence or two but even better in a mock-up on my phone, then why wouldn't you add its URL or send it to me with a senduit.com link?

The difference, of course, between Rick's VC clients and 4iP's is that the former are normally developing companies around online products, while 4iP's potential suppliers (you) are developing ideas within companies. The former has nothing else they want to do, the latter has plenty of other stuff they need to be doing to pay the rent and complete that current project on time.

What is the balance between developing a mock and just getting the idea in there? When does R&D become TIR&D?

Pic: Test tubes