You find yourself on the stage, you see the spotlight shining brightly at you, you hear a cough in the distance and before you is a panel of judges. You look to the left and see the facilitator giving you the 3...2...1...go sign. You are at a pitch night at Startup weekend about to pitch your wonderful idea.
It is ok to be nervous in that situation. Ralph Smed, founder of Toastmasters International, once said
"The unprepared speaker has the right to be afraid."
Fear will always be there but it can be mitigated with discipline and training. The feeling of giving a poorly executed pitch may feel like a slap. But all these drama can be avoided if you have done sufficient homework. Here are my top 5 points on how not to get pitch slapped:
1- Know your purpose
Before you even go up onto the stage, it is important you know WHY you are up there. it is easy to get caught up in the moment of doing and getting things done and lose sight of our why. Pitchers that have a strong sense of Why sound a lot more confident during their pitch and are able to stand firmly during Q&A afterwards. Some good questions to ask yourself to confirm your why:
2- Know your audience
You know your product, now put in some time to get to know your audience you’ll be pitching to, more particularly your judges. If you were to ask the champion of speech competitions, you would learn that most of them studied the judge’s background prior to preparing their pitch so they know what style to communicate to in order to connect with the judges. At the end of the day communication is about connecting with people, the better you are connected, the further your message gets. There are different devices of communication/connection from storytelling, including humour in your speech, body language, vocal variety and pacing. Each of these skills does take time to develop and practice to perfect and maintain.
3- Choose the right pitcher
Admit it, not everyone is a public speaker, some people are more gifted than others. If you have someone who is more experience at communication, don’t be afraid of letting them do the pitch. The 2014 Startup weekend winning team made a last day decision to change their pitcher to allow a more experienced communicator to do the pitching instead of the founder and it made all the difference.
To founders who struggle with public speaking, sometimes you have to swallow up your ego and think for the better of the group and have a much more experienced communicator. It doesn't mean you’re giving up the stage time for the rest of your life, public speaking is a skill that can be learned, you can always improve yourself over time by joining a Toastmasters club.
4- Practice, Practice, Practice
In order to have a high quality, it is important to practice your pitch. The world champion of public speaker, Darren Lacroix, tells his audience to get as much stage time as possible.
There are two words in the English language that will discredit any speaker on stage, they are “Um” and “Ah”. While it is natural for many people to say that when they find themselves with uncertain thoughts, uncertainty is the last thing you need on the stage during a pitch. You do not want to give a hint of uncertainty and unpreparedness especially when you are asking them for investment money. Would you want to entrust your money with someone who is not sure what's going to happen? definitely not!
The only remedy to overcoming those dreaded two letter words is to practice practice practice. At startup weekend, I recommend teams to allocate the whole of the last day to develop and practice their script.
5- Failure isn’t the end of the world.
Sometimes the thought of failure can paralyse a person into not starting at all. Don't let that happen to you or your team mates. Your team has put in a lot of work to get to where you are right now and it would be rather sad if you give up at this stage.
Most of these judges are lenient and know that you only had 52 hours to prepare and your pitches wont be spotless and mistakes are bound to happen (Murphy's law), the question is what are you going to do when it happens? Do you have plan to make a come back? Do you have team members on standby (wingman) that can pick up the pitch and continue on? These are some things to think about.
And suppose you tried your best and everything falls apart, at least you did your best. It's not the end of the world, you still have a product and you can always pitch at other events. You've learned a lot and thats the most important thing.
I wish you all happy pitching at Startup Weekend 2015.
-----------------
Edward was part of team Language XP, the champion of Vancouver Startup weekend 2013. An active Toastmaster and startup enthusiast, Edward is active in the tech and meetup world, connecting with people and getting involved in the community.
It is ok to be nervous in that situation. Ralph Smed, founder of Toastmasters International, once said
"The unprepared speaker has the right to be afraid."
Fear will always be there but it can be mitigated with discipline and training. The feeling of giving a poorly executed pitch may feel like a slap. But all these drama can be avoided if you have done sufficient homework. Here are my top 5 points on how not to get pitch slapped:
1- Know your purpose
Before you even go up onto the stage, it is important you know WHY you are up there. it is easy to get caught up in the moment of doing and getting things done and lose sight of our why. Pitchers that have a strong sense of Why sound a lot more confident during their pitch and are able to stand firmly during Q&A afterwards. Some good questions to ask yourself to confirm your why:
- Why are you doing this?
- What is your dream?
- How much are you willing to sacrifice for this dream
- Do you believe in this? why? if not, what must you do to build up that faith in the project?
2- Know your audience
You know your product, now put in some time to get to know your audience you’ll be pitching to, more particularly your judges. If you were to ask the champion of speech competitions, you would learn that most of them studied the judge’s background prior to preparing their pitch so they know what style to communicate to in order to connect with the judges. At the end of the day communication is about connecting with people, the better you are connected, the further your message gets. There are different devices of communication/connection from storytelling, including humour in your speech, body language, vocal variety and pacing. Each of these skills does take time to develop and practice to perfect and maintain.
3- Choose the right pitcher
Admit it, not everyone is a public speaker, some people are more gifted than others. If you have someone who is more experience at communication, don’t be afraid of letting them do the pitch. The 2014 Startup weekend winning team made a last day decision to change their pitcher to allow a more experienced communicator to do the pitching instead of the founder and it made all the difference.
To founders who struggle with public speaking, sometimes you have to swallow up your ego and think for the better of the group and have a much more experienced communicator. It doesn't mean you’re giving up the stage time for the rest of your life, public speaking is a skill that can be learned, you can always improve yourself over time by joining a Toastmasters club.
4- Practice, Practice, Practice
In order to have a high quality, it is important to practice your pitch. The world champion of public speaker, Darren Lacroix, tells his audience to get as much stage time as possible.
There are two words in the English language that will discredit any speaker on stage, they are “Um” and “Ah”. While it is natural for many people to say that when they find themselves with uncertain thoughts, uncertainty is the last thing you need on the stage during a pitch. You do not want to give a hint of uncertainty and unpreparedness especially when you are asking them for investment money. Would you want to entrust your money with someone who is not sure what's going to happen? definitely not!
The only remedy to overcoming those dreaded two letter words is to practice practice practice. At startup weekend, I recommend teams to allocate the whole of the last day to develop and practice their script.
5- Failure isn’t the end of the world.
Sometimes the thought of failure can paralyse a person into not starting at all. Don't let that happen to you or your team mates. Your team has put in a lot of work to get to where you are right now and it would be rather sad if you give up at this stage.
Most of these judges are lenient and know that you only had 52 hours to prepare and your pitches wont be spotless and mistakes are bound to happen (Murphy's law), the question is what are you going to do when it happens? Do you have plan to make a come back? Do you have team members on standby (wingman) that can pick up the pitch and continue on? These are some things to think about.
And suppose you tried your best and everything falls apart, at least you did your best. It's not the end of the world, you still have a product and you can always pitch at other events. You've learned a lot and thats the most important thing.
I wish you all happy pitching at Startup Weekend 2015.
-----------------
Edward was part of team Language XP, the champion of Vancouver Startup weekend 2013. An active Toastmaster and startup enthusiast, Edward is active in the tech and meetup world, connecting with people and getting involved in the community.