We’ve all seen it: the “Shark Tank” presentation so impressive that all the sharks are clamoring to invest. These pitches tend to be highly polished—the entrepreneurs present confidently and flawlessly, touch on every aspect of the business, and anticipate questions from the investors before they are even asked. What separates these entrepreneurs from the prepared and well-intentioned contestants whose pitches fall flat?

While some of what goes into these presentations is learned through undergraduate or MBA coursework, there is also much that is not captured in a syllabus.

Entrepreneurship’s “hidden curriculum” refers to the norms, values, beliefs and mores that form the culture of business, and especially guide practices of pitching for investment capital and selling.

For example, investors expect the entrepreneur to know how to talk about their business: to describe the problem they are solving, outline their solution (i.e., what the business does), describe how many customers might buy the solution and predict how much money the business could make with their strategy to acquire customers.

Investors also expect the entrepreneur to follow the social norms of business presentations; this means speaking confidently, listening while maintaining eye contact and answering a question thoroughly (and then also answering the question that they wish had been asked).

In many cases, the hidden curriculum—in other words, the cultural norms of entrepreneurship— are both imperfect and always changing. Understanding normative practices can help new entrepreneurs navigate consequential situations, and can also reveal opportunities for innovation and new models and approaches.

To access this hidden curriculum, new entrepreneurs can:

Learn from the pros.
Watch pitches for early-stage ventures and presentations from executives at publicly traded companies to see and hear how leaders communicate about their businesses. Don’t just record what they say, but also how they say it. What tactics do they use in answering questions?