I have been having similar experience like you. I explain steemit to people and unlike with Bitcoin, they immediately want to join.

I have explained it with and without an iPad/phone and you are right, showing the articles with high $ rewards helps so much because it's unbelievable to most.

Regarding to where the money comes from I usually explain it like this:

"There are investors in the site which creates value that steemit is able to pay out to the content creators. This creates much better content than elsewhere on the Internet, which is what the investors want. Imagine the difference on Facebook or Reddit where everyone writes whatever they want, while on steemit people try to write useful things so they get up voted. This is why steemit is so amazing and in the end everybody wins this way."

At this point I won't have mentioned anything about Bitcoin or blockchain but now I'll ask if the person knows what Bitcoin or a blockchain is. And if the answer is yes, then I'll explain that steemit is the combination of this technology with social media to combine the hottest technologies of today into one.

The other day I had an uber driver that I explained this on the way to the airport and he said while dropping me and off: " I will go home now and try this thing". He had explained to me that he was a writer but made no money with it. When I explained to him the stories and $$ some people were getting on here he was so surprised.

Steemit really changes the game. Thank you for sharing how you pitch it. Doing the pitching well, will help us all. I really enjoyed your story and learned from it.