It doesn’t matter if your business is a marketplace, B2B, or even a lemonade stand. Every business needs to be able to describe its problem/opportunity in a simple way. If you’re struggling with your messaging, start with first principles. 

This [group of people] has this [burning problem]. The [solution] 

• exists but it’s broken for X reasons and my startup can make it 10x or 100x better 
• doesn’t exist yet and it needs to exist 

In your pitch, keep the problem/opportunity simple. If you find yourself using crazy terminology or overexplaining what you do, that’s a bad sign. 

The platform Hemingway Editor can help with simplifying the language.

Another tool like ChatGPT can also help brainstorm ideas. Here’s an example of a fake business that I asked ChatGPT to help me with.

“My business is a marketplace that connects founders and executive coaches together. But we also work with coaches to host wellness retreats, mastermind groups, and we have a software platform to help them build their businesses. Can you explain my business back to me as if I was a first grader?” 

I also asked ChatGPT to give me 5 ideas on how to describe my business to investors in a simple way. 

These ideas aren’t perfect. But hopefully, these tools can give you a boost in the right direction. 

Rewrite your problem/opportunity slide as if you were explaining it to a child. Practice pitching it to friends and see what they think. And if an investor rejects your business without any explanation, you’re allowed to ask them why they passed.