The workshop
One free hour. Five questions. A story founders can use the same week.
The session replaces feature lists and buzzwords with a story grounded in real pain. That same story then anchors the pitch deck, the homepage and the pitch to a first key hire.
- Length
- 60 minutes
- Where
- Virtual by default. In person where a GrowthPath partner is nearby.
- Cohort
- Best with 8 to 15 founders. The first Lightspeed session had about a dozen.
- Who runs it
- GrowthPath partners. Operators who built GTM at Salesforce, Google, Facebook and Figma.
- Cost
- Free. No pitch inside the session.
- Prep for your team
- None. You send one invite. GrowthPath brings the content, runs the room and follows up with founders directly.
The five questions
Each founder answers five questions. Together they are the story.
The questions are the framework. The coaching is what turns an answer into a sentence a stranger would repeat.
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01
What have you built?
Say what the product does in two sentences a smart outsider would understand. No feature lists, no category jargon.
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02
Why did you build it?
Name the moment of first hand pain that made the company necessary. The story starts with a problem someone felt, not a market map.
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03
Why are you the right one?
Earned insight, not a resume. What did you see up close that other people missed, and how did you come to see it?
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04
What are the meaningful benefits?
Outcomes in the customer's words: time saved, risk reduced, decisions improved. If the customer wouldn't say it, cut it.
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05
How does it work, from here to live?
Make adoption feel realistic and low risk. What happens on day one, and when does the customer see the first result?
How the hour runs
Framing, drafting, read backs.
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01
Framing
What a working origin story is, why feature lists and category jargon fail in a pitch meeting, and a short look at a finished example so founders can see the shape before they write.
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02
Drafting, one question at a time
Founders answer the five questions in order, in their own words. GrowthPath partners coach on the spot: cutting buzzwords, pushing for the specific moment of pain, and swapping claims for outcomes in the customer's words.
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03
Read backs
Founders read their drafts aloud. The room hears what lands and what doesn't, and each founder leaves with a tightened draft and a clear next edit.
What founders walk away with
A first draft, and a clear idea of where it goes next.
Every founder leaves with a working draft: two sentences on what they built, the moment that made the company necessary, why they are the ones to build it, the benefits in the customer's own words, and a plain account of how a customer gets from signed to live.
That draft becomes the backbone of the pitch deck, the homepage copy, the hiring pitch and the first sales calls. Most founders use it in their next pitch or hiring conversation that week.
It also tends not to end at the hour. Follow on office hours are available for any founder who wants to keep working on the story, one on one with a GrowthPath partner.
- One VC partner now pays GrowthPath's fees for any portfolio founder who wants follow on office hours, after their founders asked to keep going.
- Several founders hired GrowthPath directly and expanded into sales, marketing and demand generation.
This is hands-down the best use of one hour that I can recommend to our portfolio company founders.
Want to see it before you book a cohort?
We can run a short trial session for one founder from your portfolio, or arrange a reference call with the Lightspeed team.
Nothing to prepare. One invite to send.
Pick a date in November or January and we will run the rest.