The 9-Slide Innovation Pitch That Works - Trusted by 1,000+ Teams Worldwide

When you’re standing in front of a boardroom full of skeptical executives, hoping for the green light on your brilliant innovation, there’s no room for fluff. What you need is structure, clarity, and punch.

That’s where the 9-slide innovation business case from the new book 'Breaking Innovation Barriers' comes in—a format refined and used over 1,000 times with real success. This format doesn’t just inform; it persuades.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the full 9-slide structure, explain why it works, and then show you five ways to power it up using AI.

Why You Need an Innovation Business Case

Even the most exciting idea can fail to secure support without a proper business case. Why? Because decision-makers—especially in larger organisations—are risk-averse and often disconnected from emerging customer realities or unfamiliar technologies. According to research cited in the book, innovation decisions are 2.5x more likely to fail than standard business decisions, with 50% missing expectations.

A compelling pitch doesn’t just show potential—it de-risks the innovation by building trust, showing fit, and clearly linking it to strategic goals. The 9-slide format addresses all that.

The Proven 9-Slide Innovation Pitch Format

This format is designed for a maximum 20-minute presentation. Keep it sharp and visually engaging.

Slide 1. Why?

• Why do I stick out my neck?

• Why should we stick out our necks?

• Why should our organization take the risk?

Slide 2. The Customer Challenge

• What is the customer’s current situation?

• What are their unmet needs or frustrations?

• What is the core challenge we’re solving?

Slide 3. Our New Concept

• Who is the target customer group (qualitative + quantitative)?

• What is the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion)?

• What’s new about it (to the world, market, or just your company)?

Slide 4. This Makes Our Concept Unique

• What are the customer’s buying arguments?

• What are the current alternatives?

• What’s our positioning in this landscape?

Slide 5. It Will Be Feasible

• Can we build it? Can we produce it?

• What is the development process?

• Who are our innovation delivery partners?

• Is it patentable?

Slide 6. What’s In It for Us

• Customer projections (year 1–3 or longer)

• Revenue projections

• Profit projections

• Other strategic or reputational benefits

Slide 7. Why Now?

• Why is now the right time?

• What happens if we don’t act?

Slide 8. The Decision to Proceed

• What are the major uncertainties?

• Who is the team?

• What’s the cost, process, and timeline?

Slide 9. Why We Should Say Yes

• Why would I say yes?

• Why should you say yes?

• Why should the organization say yes?

This final slide is the close—the emotional and rational crescendo of your pitch.

There's a full chapter on this pitch-deck in the new book 'Breaking Innovation Barriers', check it out on Amazon to increase your innovation impact.

5 Ways to Enhance Your Pitch Using AI

Here’s how to supercharge this framework with AI tools—making your story clearer, more data-driven, and more persuasive:

1. Generate Customer Personas with AI

Use tools like ChatGPT or PersonaGPT to simulate realistic customer personas. Feed them your challenge, and they’ll generate believable motivations, needs, and objections you can use in Slide 2 and Slide 3. Be sure to check these personas with reality of course!

2. Simulate Financial Scenarios with Predictive AI

Use AI modeling (like Python, Excel + ChatGPT, or Monte Carlo simulations) to run market adoption and revenue projections under different scenarios for Slide 6. This makes your financials feel more rigorous.

3. Prototype Concepts Visually with AI

Use image generation tools (like DALL·E or Midjourney) to create concept visuals, product mockups, or even packaging ideas. These bring Slide 3 and Slide 4 to life—especially when no prototype yet exists.

4. Conduct Competitor Analysis with AI

Scrape and summarise competitor offerings, reviews, or patents using AI tools like ChatGPT with web plugins or tools like Crayon. Use this input in Slide 4 to show why you’re differentiated.

5. De-risk Uncertainty with AI-Driven Risk Mapping

Use AI to identify possible deal-killer risks (as mentioned in the book), then score them on probability and impact. This creates transparency in Slide 8, showing you’ve proactively addressed risk.

Final Thoughts

Most innovation fails not because the idea is bad, but because the pitch is weak. The 9-slide business case format from Breaking Innovation Barriers gives you a tested and trusted structure to win that all-important “yes.” Layer in today’s AI capabilities, and you’re not just pitching—you’re projecting confidence, clarity, and control.

Wishing you lots of success making innovation impact!

Innovative regards,

Gijs van Wulfen

LinkedIn Influencer, Speaker on Design Thinking Innovation, Founder FORTH Innovation method, author of six Innovation Books, Global Number One Thought Leader on Design Thinking 2024

Ps. When you want to boost and master your innovation facilitation skills in one week with a proven method Click on this link for more information.

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