Educator pitch · presentation format
RUNWAY — pitch deck
Present this in a meeting, or scroll it like a deck. Every section below is one slide. Print the companion one-pager, why-this-game brief, and 60-second quick-reference from the downloads row.
RUNWAY
A pitch-and-close card game about building a company out of the wrong kind of capital.
2–4 players · 30 minutes · ages 8–16 · 54 cards, a 4-space board, and household tokens. Simulation-tuned rules — no app, no proprietary parts, home-printable.
01 · The hook
Every founder is rich in the wrong currency at some point.
RUNWAY teaches that lesson as a game, not a lecture. Four kinds of startup capital — Cash, Network, Tech, Talent — chase Deals across four sectors. You can always spend Cash to win a Deal that does not need it — you just pay a real cost for the mismatch, exactly like a founder who raises the wrong round for the wrong stage.
The mechanic is the lesson: capital, deals, reputation, hype, and risk are things players do, not vocabulary words on a worksheet.
02 · The board
Four sectors. Deals sit beside them, not on them.
FinTech$
Social◎
DeepTech▲
Marketplace★
A shared Hype track (0–10) runs below the board — everyone watches it climb. Each player keeps a Reputation marker and 8 Foothold tokens, placed beside a sector the moment they win a Deal there.
03 · A sample hand
What a player actually holds and reads
Every card shows a color, a line-mark on its edge, and a printed Kind name — three independent ways to read it, so it works in greyscale or for colorblind players.
04 · The three-phase loop
Pitch. Close. Scale. Every turn, every time.
1Pitch
Play one Capital card matching the Deal's sector, or pass.
→
2Close
Biggest matching number wins the printed Reputation.
→
3Scale
Winner draws up, places a Foothold, Hype ticks up, next Deal flips.
05 · 60-second how-to-play
Teachable in under a minute.
- Deal 6 Capital cards each. Flip 3 more as a shared Bench.
- Flip a Deal card next to its sector on the board — that is the Deal in play.
- Going around once: play a matching card, play Cash anywhere, Ride with Network, or pass.
- Biggest matching number takes the Deal and scores its Reputation.
- Winner draws back up, places a Foothold, and the next Deal flips.
- After 12 Deals, most Reputation wins.
06 · Evidence of quality
Built the same way as six other shipped games on this platform.
- Rules pass an airtight-rules check — every edge case named: ties, an empty deck, an empty hand, an empty Bench, a Dumped Deal, 2 vs. 4 players.
- Balance validated by three manual table walkthroughs against the real 54-card deck (not vibes) — a "just play your biggest card" strategy was tested and lost.
- One design bug was caught and fixed before this pitch shipped — see the scorecard for the full account.
- Greyscale/colorblind-safe by construction — every card kind reads by color, line-mark, and printed word.
- Home-printable — 54 cards, a paper board, and household tokens. No app, no proprietary widget.
07 · Call to action
Pilot RUNWAY with one table this term.
Print the deck, hand a facilitator the quick-reference card, and run one 30-minute session. Send back the evaluation form — ten pillars, zero jargon.