First Pitch: failed, sorta

Today I gave my first pitch to a panel of local business people, who screen pitches for a local angel investor network.  I prepared my 12 slide 10 minute presentation up to the day before.  It wasn’t glitzy, but I thought it presented my business case at the conceptual level.  I had no expectation of succeeding out of the gate, but I had a hope that I would get some solid advice on what to do next.  I ended up getting most of my advice from myself, in hindsight.  I definitely got a good dose of external advice, as well. Even if it came with some laughter at my expense.  Lucky for me being laughed at is something I’m good at receiving and it actually fuels me more than stops me.

I had sent in a business opportunity document, that they used to brief themselves.  I wasn’t thinking clearly when I filled that out, and had sent in some answers that could easily be considered a joke.  This was correctly interpreted as ego, and at least one of the panel had been looking forward to meeting it.  I showed up with my ego in check, already expecting to be a bit of a face plant.  The advice I got about “showing ego to investors is: they will slam the door in your face”.  They laughed about it, and so did I.  I’m very aware of my ego and have plans to put it to good use, but I need to be more strategic.  I have some taming left to do.  Part of my strategy for working on this is publicizing my failures, I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

After the ego bit, they asked me about my background, which I had failed to include in the presentation.  I’m sure my lack of business experience was easy to spot.  The one common encouragement on my feedback sheets was I displayed “knowledgeable”ness.  My numbers were highly dubious and, to be honest, incomplete.  I really need to work out a better case than the worst one for presentations.  Duh!

They commented that most of my market research was still just opinion.  Yup. On my feedback sheets, there is a lack of definition of who my customer is. I can agree with.  These two items have prompted me to think more about doing surveys and getting some broader feedback on what people would use.  They also commented that my marketing plan isn’t serious or specific enough. I had some grasp of the competition, but no defensible advantage.  All in all, I got my butt kicked.  I had expected some harsh reality and ended up getting it in spades.

I would like to take a moment to thank my butt-kicker panel for serving it up.  Having spoken with some experienced business folk before, I knew to expect tough questions.  The interesting thing was, I didn’t get many questions.  Mostly, I got straight advice about what I was missing or had failed to present in my case.  There was some talk around the product and some push back on a couple of feature ideas, but not many questions.  Anyways, thanks for the advice, and the laughs!  I really appreciate the honesty that occurs when talking business.  There is a zest to life when I can trust my audience to be completely blunt with me.  Hard knocks, have been rare for me to manufacture in my spoiled life, but I begin to appreciate their power more and more.  I just hope that the lessons learned the hard way stick longer than they do, when I skim nearby one or witness others lessons.

On the way home, I realized I have a recurring problem, not only with my ego, but with one of my strengths.  I am a futurist.  This strength helps me design the product of the future, but it hinders me when selling it to the people of today.  I have a romanticized version of what my product will do, because I can see how it can be used.  Translating that vision is the tricky bit that I’m learning to do.  Also, I’m pretty sure I have good marketing ideas, but my execution is sloppy and amateurish.  Of course, successful marketing should be neither of these, so there is lots of work for me to do before those ideas will be fairly evaluated.

This points me at what I have to do in the short term and based on my strengths what my priorities are:
1) Screens.  Prototype screens. Tasks: Do it and make them look good.
2) Defining my customer requires market research. Task: Survey development and deployment.
3) I have to build a clearly packaged idea of what I envision. I suck at packaging. Tasks: Find help and create a packaging to-do list.
4) Selling my business to investors is pitching.  I need to pitch me first and then the product. It’s all I have that I can be credible with. Task: rework pitch with more dazzle and include screens.
5) After 3), find mentors, who buy my vision (as packaged) to help with the parts I can’t claim credibility on. Tasks: Enter New Ventures BC contest by April 19th and/or join VIATec and/or connect more with ACETECH.

Also, my special sauce slide was blank.  The pictures didn’t show for some unknown reason.  It didn’t matter, it wouldn’t have solved any of my clear deficiencies, even if it had shown.  Though it may have advanced more product questions.

So I got my advice and made some people laugh.  If only I was a comedian, instead of a CEO.  On second hand, maybe Comedic Executive Officer could work.

Thanks for reading!

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