Tag Archives: Pitching

Pitch Perfect pt. 2: Pitching to McClure

10 May

Since I’ll be moving, finishing my first week at my new job and attending a graduation this weekend, I will not be present at the third edition of Startup Weekend in Mexico City. However, this does not mean that my desire to have every single entrepreneur there kick some major ass has in anyway diminished. I decided not to go recently, however before that I had been doing some extensive research on the panel of judges (since I’m a hustler: my job mainly consists on wooing a panel), and even though this will be a star-filled event, I decided focusing efforts was the best idea. I believe, that the most intimidating and harsh judge on that panel will be Dave (hence, making him the one everyone will want to impress), so I researched him thoroughly and came up with a good guide on how to pitch for the money. I had friends pitch to him at Rackspace on a Startup Bus event. I can tell you: you’re in for a ride. But worry not, I am here to help, and hopefully this guide will get you in and out of that infamous pitch swinging. I’ll break it down by steps:

1. Get your game face on. Your job as a hustler (business end) is to sell a fucking amazing idea that gets the crowd excited to build it,  and then sell the finished demo to investors. Chances are, your product will be far from where you want it to be when Sunday comes around. The panel does not know that, so focus on your strengths and fire up your presentation working around those.

2. When naming your product avoid names that are hard to write down, most likely judges will have ipads or iphones on them, and will search it as soon as it comes out of your mouth. Make sure to enunciate your URL as clearly as possible and avoid hyphens. No, really: avoid them or get bitched at.

3. Make a clean and USEFUL key note, starting out with a slide with your project’s name and URL is a really good idea.

4. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Chances are, judges will find holes and mistakes on your model, product, design, presentations… That’s what they do for a living, so please avoid taking constructive criticism like mothers take having their babies called ugly. Being defensive gets you nowhere (it may even get you laughed at). Startup Weekend is a learning experience and as harsh as it may sound all criticism is made in hopes of making your project better: Be open to critiques, encourage quality feedback, and make your audience and panel feel like you can be coached (this makes you way more valuable than being an annoying and bitchy know-it-all). A good tip is thanking everyone for their suggestions and saying you’ll keep them in mind, you can discard useless ones later in a more private scenario.

5. Speak. With. Conviction

6. Own that stage and know your shit, I wrote about the practical aspects of pitching (speaking in public) here, if you need extra tips or want some feedback before your big moment, you can facebook, twitter, skype or email me :)

Ok so this is the part you want to read carefully, since it was curated from a compilation of McClure’s  elegantly titled presentation “How to Pitch a VC (AKA Startup Viagra: How to give a VC a hard-on)” and some variations of the same talk given at events world wide, so it’s as close to fool’s proof as I’ll get.

  • When coming up with an idea, think pain-killer (the one drug you will not forget to buy, because it makes the sensation of a splitting skull go away) over vitamin (the one that’s good for you, but that you keep forgetting), find PAIN in the market, come up with a solution and think of your pitch as an advertisement of how you’re fixing the pain. If you do that correctly, you’ll have an AMAZING Startup Weekend pitch.
  • In line with the previous one; if you’re not getting your client paid, made (successful) or laid (yes, this means sex). You’re doing it wrong.
  • Niche niche niche. That’s it.
  • Live demos are very tricky, and often fail. Either play it safe (with a video or screen shots) or go into it expecting it to fail.
  • Keep it short and sweet. Do not term-drop (or, again, get bitched at). When in doubt: KISS: Keep it simple stupid.
  • Stay AWAY from money projections, if you don’t have actual money, then make your “money shot” around your demo (screen shots and/ or video), not about how you plan to maybe one day become rich and famous…
  • Go for the customers!! Use that last day to get out of the building and get people to try your stuff out. Read the next part out loud: Customer testimonials are awesome!
  • Expect multiple interruptions and don’t expect sweetness and sugar coating. This is SPARTAAAA game time.
  • Make it fun! Think outside the box: get interpretative dancers, sing some of it, do it naked. Pitching is supposed to be fun so go put on a show! Close with a bang and leave them wanting more
  • Original slides over here, READ THOSE. He covers everything with more detail, as well as financial aspects and details on business modeling.

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Pitch Perfect

4 May

A few months ago I participated on The StartupBus, I’ve written about how much of a great experience that was. But I never went into the details of what I took from it.

Funny, Jeduan introduced me the first day saying “She’s good at talking”. Time proved that to be very true, I became the on-board pitch assistant. We were working against the clock so coming up with good pitches was not an easy task, this post is a summary of all the advice I could possibly give if I was helping you make an awesome pitch.

I’ll play on my strengths, so I won’t focus on the financial (go to the VCs or the seasoned entrepreneurs for that, they’re usually quite approachable and do this on a daily basis) or technical stuff; if you want to come up with a good deck, I recommend the following resources:

Slideshare

PlantoStart

Lulo’s Blog (he’s a rockstar pitcher, so read that too!)

I believe a great pitch comes from answering the right questions, it’s important to answer them with a broad audience in mind (from your mother to Sequoia investors), so keep the language as simple as possible. Remember Einstein’s words “If you can’t explain it simply enough, you don’t understand it well enough”:

NAME your project:

URL 

WHAT YOU’RE SELLING:
When pitching to investors (on a Startup Weekend or Startup Bus like scenario, where getting paying customers is very unlikely) you can focus on ONE of three things:

  1. Traction – if you’ve managed to get masses directed towards your product you have to say this FAST and emphasize, I’d drop it right after the name and url
  2. Team -  if you haven’t gotten traction yet, but you have an amazing team, make sure you play on that, I put a section below in which you introduce each member’s strengths, make sure to make it count. You’re the team to solve the problem, that’s why you should get money!
  3. Idea – I wouldn’t recommend this, since it’s quite hard to sell an idea, but if you think it’s genius. Go for it!, just know the chances of getting money or even attention are slimmer. You sell your vision and how the world will be changed when it comes to life.

 

The questions you NEED to answer

WHY?

Give us two sentences on the passion and values that drove you to create what you’re creating

Tell us about the pain, the SPECIFIC PROBLEM you’re solving

HOW?

Tell us how you’re fixing the problem

Here you talk about how your client interacts with the product, for example if you’re building a dating site for dogs you say, we bring lonely rascals together with cute lonely single females, producing the world’s cutest puppies.

WHAT?

Describe the details of your product

The kind of platform, technology, etc; going back to the dog example: we built an amazing mobile platform where owners can browse profiles of other dogs and contact them via direct messages and forums.

I’m hoping that my dog example clears the confusion between the how and the what, if it doesn’t comment and I’ll come up with more random examples and creative explanations.

 

The team

Why are you rock stars?

Name each member of your team and tell us what he is GREAT at (evidently this being what they’re working on)

Tell us why you’re the right team to take on the challenge (no need to trash the competition, just work on your strengths)

 

The numbers

Size of your market:

WHO needs your product, describe your ideal target costumer

HOW MANY of them are there?

WHERE are they located?

WHO are you competing against, and WHY will you eventually beat them?

 

The Vision

Start small:

Tell us what your first niche will be and how you’ll take it over

Scale:

Explain how you plan to grow out of your niche and onto bigger things

Dream on:

Tell us how you plan to conquer them all

Tell us where you see your project in 5 to 10 years

 

Show me the money!

Does your business model have a name? (freemium, pay-as-you-go…)

WHAT EXACTLY will your customers PAY for?

HOW MUCH will they pay?

What are your costs for the entire first year of operations? Break them down to specifics, and compare them with your earnings.

If someone was to write you a check right now, how much would you want it to be for?

How will you use it?

 

The awful truth: If you can’t answer the previous questions, it means you don’t have a clear project in mind. As the hustler of the team you need to know all of it up and down, if the rest of your team knows and understands it as well as you do, that’s CEO material right there! That’s what communicating vision is all about.

 

TAKING THE STAGE

When you’re up on a stage:

  • Stand still, people dancing and fidgeting around look ridiculous and nervous, if you’re going to walk do it on a straight line across the stage. Stand, turn, walk.
  • With your hands make a square in front of your chest, try and keep your hand gestures within that box. If you’re pointing to something behind you, do it with the hand that is closest to it, don’t cover your body or face by using the hand that’s in front of you. Your gestures should be as open to the public as possible, this shows confidence and gets attention.
  • If you’re bringing the whole team up, spread them out, so the stage looks balanced visually.
  • Speak clearly, enunciate, be loud, make sure the people in the back of the room are hearing and understanding what you say,
  • Speak with conviction, even if you are making a mistake, say it like you mean it. There’s always time to correct yourself, saving face if you have a major nervous break down is harder. Besides, the energy you transmit to the public will impact how they receive you and your product, so make sure to sell it, to make them believe YOU believe in it (if you wouldn’t buy it… Why would anyone?).
  • Fuck the language barrier!, even if you’re speaking in a language that you’re not particularly good at, communication is not about speaking perfectly, 80% is non-verbal, so don’t concentrate on your shortcomings, concentrate on communicating how great your team and product is.
  • Own it! Speaking in public is like singing in the shower, you need to believe it and put on a show. Make that stage your bitch! and make the crowd remember you. Investors see pitches every day, you want them to remember yours, not boring the socks out of them is a good first step.
  • Practice Practice Practice! Great speakers make it seem so easy, if you’ve done it a hundred times: you will too. Make sure to get people to criticize you, an interesting exercise is to get others to pitch back at you once you’re done. This will give you insight on the message you’re sending and give you new ideas.

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