VEN-09 · Pitch that names risks

Deliver a five-minute pitch that includes an explicit risk slide, and survive the questions. The test is not whether judges liked it — it is whether a skeptical listener could find a hole you had not already named.

The venture packet built across this bank. A named audience and time limit matching the event the student is actually entering. At least two rehearsal audiences: peers, and one adult who has not followed the project. A question bank the student writes in advance — the ten hardest questions about their own venture, including the ones they hope nobody asks.

Burying risk in a "challenges" slide that lists only solved problems. Answering a hard question with a bigger vision. Claiming a market size with no path from that number to a customer. Presenting projections as forecasts. Rehearsing only in front of people who already believe. Treating "why does this need a model?" as hostile rather than as the central question — it will be asked, and VEN-03 is the answer.

A pitch plus its evidence: the deck or talk with an explicit risk slide naming the three most likely ways this fails and what would have to be true for it to work; the question bank with the student's honest answers, including "I do not know yet, and here is how I would find out"; recorded rehearsal feedback with what changed after each; and every number on every slide traceable to a brief in this bank.

CT: identifying your own weakest claim before someone else does. CR: designing five minutes that survive contact. CO: rehearsal audiences supply the questions and the revisions. CM: the entire brief. CZ: the honesty owed to a judge, a customer, or an investor who might act on what you say.

A founder, judge, or business professional runs one hostile question round. Standing instruction: reject any pitch whose risk slide contains only risks the student has already solved. School-supervised.

R1: one venture, one audience, one time limit. R2: every number traceable to its source brief. R3: comparator is the pitch without the risk slide — and why the honest one is stronger. R4: three real risks named, not decorative ones. R5: this brief is R5. R6: "I do not know" appears where it is true.

(a) A polished pitch that collapses on the second question because the risk slide was decorative. (b) Numbers on slides that no brief in the packet supports.

Lane A immediately (capstone showcase, DECA or FBLA presentation event). Natural finale alongside VEN-12. No verified credit claim.