^^ super useful feedback, thanks for taking the time to explain and get more specific.
Generally, most people do NO (or very little) research, testing or thinking about their business idea before investing significant resources into it. My aim was to get them thinking, even if my way isn't the best. If I can help them avoid analysis paralysis and just DO something that moves their dream of starting a business forward, without risking too much money and time, then I'm happy. :-)
With over 10k words I didn't have the time (or frankly, energy) to dive too deep into any one topic. For example elevator pitching, which could be a 10,000 word blog post in itself. Happy to provide links for further reading though if you have any specific resources you find useful?
I actually think the culty thing is kind of a compliment; some of the most successful companies are kind of cultish and many great marketers talk about building 'Tribes' (e.g. Seth Godin). Maybe I just absorbed a bit too much of Noah Kagan's charisma when I worked at AppSumo, I dunno. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is a bigger topic again, but in my experience rather than 'optimizing' (investing a lot of time choosing the best possible path) it's much more efficient to 'satisfice' (invest less time and choose a good enough path). Does it really make that much difference which elevator pitch format you use? Or is it more important that you actually do write one? Providing multiple options would only scare most people away because it's too hard to pick.
Hope that's useful background / partial justification for cultiness. ;-)