Research on venture pitch elements and audience support has proliferated, but we lack a unifying theoretical framework to build on to interpret past and as well as future research. We draw on the persuasion knowledge model from marketing to better understand how pitch elements including venture and founding team characteristics impact evaluations of the pitch attempt and affect audience member support. We analyze pitch evaluations for three types of respondents: established venture community members, Evening MBA students with startup experience, and Evening MBA students who do not have startup experience. Overall, we find robust support for the persuasion knowledge model. For inexperienced audiences, the persuasion attempt (i.e., passion and presentation quality) mediates the relationship between agent/topic characteristics and willingness to support. With increased venturing experience, persuasion attempt mediation disappears and only topic characteristics are related to willingness to support. Importantly though, both persuasion attempt quality and agent characteristics are predictive of venture survival at 5 to 9 and 15 to 19 years after the pitch.
