What makes for a compelling
start-up pitch?
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| An enthusiastic crowd awaits the pitches. |
I had the good fortune to be
a judge recently at NYC Silicone Alley “Pitch Night” for both existing tech
start-ups and would-be entrepreneurs taking their ideas for a test drive in
front of an audience and judging panel.
This Meet-up event was held at a cool
tech school located in the heart of NYC’s “Silicone Alley” called Turn to Tech
– with a great view of the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park. The event
was sponsored by NYC-based Blue Water Labs, a big data and tech community
builder consultant and aptly called Qwitcher bitchin’ and start pitchin’.
The rules were simple: A
brief introduction, five minutes for “the pitch,” one question each from the
three judges and one question from the audience – then out. The judging
criteria was: 40% on the presentation, 40% on the technology and 20% on the “X
Factor” – allowing subjective room for the judges.
But what makes for a
compelling start-up pitch? Business Insider offered their view “The Best Start-up Pitches We’ve Ever Seen” a couple of years ago, and they aligned well with helping judge this event.
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| Infomous provides a visualization of text content. |
Infomous was the first firm
up and Paolo
Gaudiano their founder started in. The
first rule of any decent pitch is grab
the audience’s attention in the first minute, and a close second for a good
pitch is explaining the business concept
in a simple problem / solution way.
Paolo nailed it with his simple business description
and by giving a live demo of their app. Infomous provides a visual exploration of
text-based content. Perfect for publishers – their primary target.
Renuka Agarwal was up next pitching “Bond” which is a professional networking app that matches members based on similar profiles and interests. It is designed to make the traditionally time consuming and daunting online networking-process easier, more fun and more effective.
Renuka gets high marks for delivering her “two minute pitch” with the speed, and accuracy of a CC Sabathia fastball. She knew her material and delivered it with an effervescent high energy, delighting the audience in the process. These are also elements of a successful pitch. I'll bet she makes the cover of Fast Company at some point soon.
The final winning pitch of
the night came from Michael Liguori – the CEO / CTO of What Minds Are For (WRM4) who provide Vognition™ - a
technology that is designed to control devices using natural language
processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU).
Michael explained a bunch of interesting potential uses for this custom voice interface. From a remote thermostat to a Blue-Ray player and an air conditioner. I wondered out loud after the event with Michael about industrial and recreational sports applications like ski lift operators, where seconds can count when they need to stop a lift in a hurry, and bulky gloves and manual switches can adversely come into play.
His summary was compelling - another tenet of an effective pitch.
