Startup Culture
Hockey Stick Growth
A growth pattern characterized by a flat or slow early period followed by a sudden, steep upward trajectory — resembling the shape of a hockey stick.
Hockey stick growth describes the classic venture-backed growth curve where a company experiences a prolonged period of product development and market experimentation (the blade flat on the ice) followed by a dramatic inflection point and explosive growth (the upward shaft). This pattern is often cited in pitch decks and investor presentations as evidence that a company has found product-market fit.
In Practice
After 18 months of flat revenue, the marketplace hit critical mass in Q3 and revenue grew from $200K to $3M MRR in six months — a textbook hockey stick.
Why It Matters
Investors actively look for hockey stick inflection points as signals of product-market fit and scalability. However, many hockey sticks in pitch decks are aspirational projections rather than demonstrated reality.
VC Beast Take
Every pitch deck has a hockey stick. The question is whether the inflection point is based on data or on the founder's imagination.
Related Concepts
Further Reading
How to Build a Pitch Deck VCs Actually Read
VCs spend 3 minutes on your deck. Most of that on two slides. Here's the 12-slide framework that gets meetings, what investors skip, and the storytelling mistakes that kill deals.
What VCs Actually Look for in a Seed-Stage Founder
Forget the pitch deck advice. Here's what seed investors are really evaluating — and it's not what most founders think.
How to Write a Pitch Deck That Actually Gets Funded
Most pitch decks fail silently. Here's a slide-by-slide breakdown of what actually works when pitching VCs — based on what investors really look for.
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