How to Teach Pitching to High School Students Without Boring Them

How do you teach pitching to high school students?

Strip the pitch format to four sentences (what / who / why now / why you), remove preparation time, make the audience ask unscripted follow-up questions, and score on Funny plus Fundable. The skill builds in one 90-minute session, not over weeks of slide preparation.

The story

The standard pitch curriculum looks like this: teach the format for two weeks, assign a Shark Tank-style project, students prepare slides for a week, present to classmates who half-listen, professor grades. The students who already had pitching confidence get an A. The ones who didn't sit at the back, slide-prepare, and never speak up.

I watched this happen enough times that we built SideHustle Labs around the observation that pitching is an improvisation skill, not a presentation skill. The Entrepreneurship Club President at the University of Oklahoma told us the line that nailed it: "A lot of people have kind of lost the art of pitching. This helps them get out of their comfort zone."

Our format does four things: (1) the pitch is four sentences (what / who / why now / why you), (2) prep time is 90 seconds not two weeks, (3) the Investor team asks one unscripted question per pitch, (4) scoring is Funny plus Fundable so students take real swings instead of playing safe.

What it means

The students who go on to build real businesses aren't the ones with the prettiest decks. They're the ones who can defend an idea they came up with 90 seconds ago. Until you make them practice that, every entrepreneurship curriculum is teaching the wrong thing.

Try it

• Play the format free at playsidehustle.com to see it in action
• See us live: Sept 25 at Pershing Hall in Austin. luma.com/playsidehustle
• Email us at team@playsidehustle.com to bring SideHustle Labs to your class