To make a startup pitch competition video in a weekend, spend Friday evening reading the rules and writing one sentence that says who has the problem and what you do about it. On Saturday, write a script of about 280 words for a two minute video in eight parts (problem, solution, proof, market, business model, traction, team, ask), record the founders and the product, and draft the explanation scenes as drawings. On Sunday, stitch, caption, show it to two people who have never heard the idea, fix what confused them, and upload with a day to spare. Most entries lose marks on vague problems and missing numbers, not on production quality.

Read the format before you write a word

"Pitch competition video" covers several different things, and the right video for one is wrong for another. Check which one you are entering.

If the rules say founders only, do exactly that. Drawn scenes, music and product footage in a founder video tell the judges you did not read the brief. Everything below is for the second, third and fourth formats, where explanation is allowed.

Also check, before you plan anything: the length cap (and whether going over disqualifies you), where to upload (YouTube unlisted, Vimeo, or a direct file), whether captions are required, and the judging criteria. Many competitions publish a rubric. If yours does, your script should have one section for every row of it.

What judges score

Rubrics vary, but most pitch competitions score some version of the same seven or eight things. Judges are usually founders, investors or faculty, watching dozens of entries in a sitting, and the video has to make each answer easy to find.

1. Problem. Is it real, specific, and felt by a named kind of person?
2. Solution. Is it clear what you do, in one sentence?
3. Proof. Does it exist, or is there evidence it would work?
4. Market. How many people or businesses have the problem, with a number and a source?
5. Business model. Who pays, how much, how often?
6. Traction. Users, pilots, letters of intent, revenue, waiting list. Anything measured.
7. Team. Why you, specifically.
8. The ask. What you would do with the prize or the investment.

The two most common weaknesses are a problem described in the abstract ("small businesses struggle with payments") and a market slide with one huge number nobody can check. Both are fixable in the script.

The two minute structure

At 150 spoken words a minute, two minutes is about 300 words. Aim for 280, because a video that finishes early reads as confident and a cut-off one reads as careless.

Put your faces in at the end, not only in a corner throughout. Judges want to see the team, and ending on people talking directly to camera is stronger than ending on a logo.

Worked example: payments for market stall traders

Here is a full script of about 225 words, under the 280-word budget, for a fictional startup, Stallpay, which lets weekend market traders take contactless card payments on their own phone and see their takings by product at the end of the day.

Problem. "Priya sells pickles at a Saturday market. A third of her customers want to pay by card. Her old card reader needs its own data plan, its battery dies by two o'clock, and every week she loses sales to the stall next door that has a working one."

Solution. "Stallpay turns the trader's own phone into a contactless card reader, with no extra hardware."

Proof. "Here is a real sale. Priya taps the jar of lime pickle on her product list. The customer taps their card on the back of her phone. Two seconds later, it is approved. At closing time, she sees her takings by product: lime pickle sold out by one, mango barely moved."

Market. "Our country has about forty thousand regular market traders, according to the national traders' association. We are starting with the twelve hundred in our city."

Business model. "Traders pay a small fee on each card sale and nothing else. No monthly charge, no hardware to buy."

Traction. "We ran a six week pilot at two markets. Thirty-one traders signed up, twenty-six are still using it, and they took nine thousand card payments between them."

Team. "I am Anika, and I ran a market stall for three years. This is Tom, who built payment software at a bank."

Ask. "The prize would pay for our card scheme certification and a launch at ten more markets this spring."

Three things to copy. The problem is one named person with a cost you can see (lost sales by two o'clock). Every number has a source or a method. And the proof is the product doing the real job, including the end-of-day summary that the problem section set up. All figures here are invented for the example: in your own script, every one must be real and checkable, because judges ask.

The "two seconds after the tap" is a good example of a step that is hard to show by filming a phone, because the interesting part happens invisibly between the card, the phone, the payment network and the bank. That is where a drawn scene earns its place.

The weekend, hour by hour

Friday evening, two hours. Read the rules twice. Write down the length limit, upload format, deadline with time zone, and the rubric. Write the one-sentence version of the startup: who has the problem, and what you do. If the founders disagree on that sentence, settle it now; it is much harder on Sunday.

Saturday morning, three hours. Write the eight parts. Read the script aloud with a timer, cut to 280 words, and check every number against its source. Write the sources in a separate note: if a judge asks, you will want them.

Saturday afternoon, three hours. Record the product doing the real job, in two or three takes, with notifications off and text large enough to read on a phone. Record the founders' team and ask sections facing a window, phone at eye level, in a quiet room. Then draft the drawn scenes: problem, solution, market, business model, traction.

Sunday morning, three hours. Stitch it in any basic editor (CapCut, Clipchamp, iMovie or DaVinci Resolve). Add captions; many judges watch on a laptop with the sound low. Show it to two people who do not know the idea and ask them to repeat back what the startup does. If they cannot, the problem or solution section is unclear, and that is the part to rewrite.

Sunday afternoon. Fix, export, upload, and open the link in a private browser window to confirm it plays for someone not logged in. Submit at least a few hours before the deadline. Upload processing can take far longer than you expect.

Make it

1. 1

   Settle the one sentence

   Who has the problem and what you do about it. Every section of the script has to support that sentence.

2. 2

   Write the eight parts to the rubric

   Problem, solution, proof, market, business model, traction, team, ask. About 280 words for two minutes. Put a source next to every number.

3. 3

   Draft the explanation scenes

   In openCanviz, paste the problem, solution, market, model and traction sections and choose Keep my wording so the narration is your checked script. Cutout or whiteboard styles suit a pitch. Generate the voice or record your own.

4. 4

   Film the proof and the founders

   Record the product doing the real job, then the founders saying the team and ask lines to camera. Keep your faces for the ending.

5. 5

   Check every number on screen

   Pause on each drawn scene and compare every figure and label with your notes. Fix any wrong one in the editor before you export.

6. 6

   Test it on a stranger

   Ask someone new to say back what you do. If they cannot, rewrite the first thirty seconds, then upload and test the link logged out.

Common questions

Should I use a script or speak naturally? It depends on the format. For a founder-only video like Y Combinator's, speak from bullet points; YC says reading a script does not help. For a two minute video pitch with narration over drawings and product footage, a tight script is normal and saves time, and the founder sections at the end can still be spoken naturally.

What if we have no product yet? Say so, and replace the recording with a drawn scene of how it will work, followed by whatever evidence you have: interviews, a waiting list, a paper prototype test. Judges at early-stage competitions expect ideas; they mark down pretending.

Can I reuse the homepage explainer we already have? Only parts of it. A homepage video is written for customers and leaves out market, model, team and ask, which are half of a pitch score. How to make an explainer video for your startup homepage covers that video; you can reuse its how-it-works scene here.

Is this the same as a hackathon demo video? No. A hackathon video is mostly proof that something works and how it was built. A pitch video is mostly the case for a business. If you are entering both, how to make a hackathon demo video in an hour covers the other one.

Do I need background music? No. If you add any, use a track you have the rights to; a muted or blocked upload the night before a deadline is a bad way to lose.