MIT Entrepreneurship and

Maker Skills Integrator

Great pitches, Part 1

January 2018

Elaine Chen

Today, we put it all together

THE SINGLE NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT

CONDITION FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

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But… just that is not enough

• Need to solve customer problems with a great product

Problem Solution

Problem-solution fit

But… even that is not enough

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• You have to get customers to pay

• You have to make more money than you spend

• You have to build a company that lasts

All this needs to be in your pitch

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Showcase judging rubric, again

• Team Chemistry

• Problem statement

• Proposed solution

• Business model & financial potential

• Presentation skills

• Potential for success of prototype

• UX/UI/Human factor of the prototype

• Technical Achievement of the Prototype

• Wildcard

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• Identify a significant opportunity for innovation

• Identify meaningful stakeholders and understand them profoundly

• Conceptualize your solution and its position in the customer journey

• Evaluate the financial viability and the long-term growth and potential of your

venture

• Oral presentation

• Visuals

• Q&A

• Team

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Content

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Know your audience

• Who are your judges?

– Read their bios

– Google them

– Figure out what they know, what they care about

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Let’s say you are pitching to investors or

advisors

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Guy Kawasaki’s cheat sheet

1. Title

2. Problem

3. Solution

4. Underlying Magic

5. Business Model

6. Marketing and Sales

7. Competition

8. Management Team

9. Financial Projections and Key Metrics

10.Current Status, Accomplishments to

Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds

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+ Call to action

For ShowCase Day:

Content to cover in 10 minutes

• Tell a story – grab their interest

• Market / customer / problem, needs and wants / total

addressable market (TAM). Why this matters.

• Solution / how’s it better, what makes it special

• Product demo – what it does, what it could become

• Making money – how you reach the customers; pricing;

biz model; financials

• Team / what makes you special

• Summary and “ask” (e.g. seed money; recruiting advisors)13

Where are you weak?

Work on that today

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Questions?

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Delivery

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7 deadly sins

• Timid body language

• Misusing scripts

• Needless complexity

• Rushing

• Runaway sentences

• Boring facts

• Visually punishing slides18

Timid body language

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Misusing scripts

• Three risks

– Sounding like a high school valedictorian

– Sounding like an audible book

– Sounding like a robot

• DON’T STRESS IT

Needless complexity

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Needless complexity

“Our patent-pending headband with silverized fabric

dry electrodes coupled with a medical grade,

miniature conditioning electronics that allows us to

pick up noisy and low signal-to-noise EEG signals

from your forehead while you sleep. We use a

neural net algorithm trained with sleep data from 50

healthy subjects to analyze the data and digitize the

EEG signals into epochs, each representing one of

six stages of sleep, so you and your doctor can

compare your sleep patterns with that of healthy

subjects and understand where it differs and what

measures you can take to mitigate these problems.”

“Our patent pending-headband measures and analyzes your brain waves while you sleep.

The data helps you and your doctor understand what’s going wrong, and how you can fix it. ”

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“Our patent-pending headband with silverized fabric

dry electrodes coupled with a medical grade,

miniature conditioning electronics that allows us to

pick up noisy and low signal-to-noise EEG signals

from your forehead while you sleep. We use a

neural net algorithm trained with sleep data from 50

healthy subjects to analyze the data and digitize the

EEG signals into epochs, each representing one of

six stages of sleep, so you and your doctor can

compare your sleep patterns with that of healthy

subjects and understand where it differs and what

measures you can take to mitigate these problems.”

“Our patent pending-headband measures and analyzes your brain waves while you sleep.

The data helps you and your doctor understand what’s going wrong, and how you can fix it. ”

http://readable.io

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97 words

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30 words

Rushing

• S a y . L e s s . S l o w e r .

• E-nun-ci-ate.

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Runaway sentences

our patent pending-headband measures and analyzes your

brain waves while you sleep and the data helps you and

your doctor understand what’s going wrong and how you

can fix it

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Boring facts

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Visually punishing slides

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versus

Avoiding the 7 deadly sins

• Timid body language: Amy Cuddy power poses

• Needless complexity: Smaller, fewer words

• Misusing scripts: Don’t stress it

• Rushing: Say less slower; enunciate

• Runaway sentences: Breathing; phrasing; pausing

• Boring facts: Tell stories

• Visually punishing slides: Clean design33

Getting ready for Game Day

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Check out the venue

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A/V and more

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Amy Cuddy, again

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Pitching is theater

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Quick tips on effective pitches

• Focus on the audience – what do they need?

• Tell stories – make an emotional connection

• Use powerful images – very few words

• Simplify – less is more

• Don’t cram a 60 minute talk into 15 minutes

• Don’t have 6 speakers in a 15 minute talk

• If more than 1 speaker: Make 1 the lead/MC

• Practice – especially the beginning

• Be prepared for Q&A – have backup data/slides

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Example slide decks / great pitches

• Slide templates• Guy Kawasaki has a great infographic that provides a 10-slide budget for

a good pitch deck.

• LearnLaunch provides a more flexible guideline for a good pitch deck.

• Videos outlining how to pitch• Simon Sinek: "How great leaders inspire action".

• David Rose: "How to pitch to a VC ”

• Example decks in GDrive (Informed, petech, Bsavy, Accion)

• Holy grail example – to inspire you (not scare you) (i.e. if you are a real startup team that has been working on the biz for 12months+)• https://youtu.be/f1u5zYZcoX0

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• Improving medication adherence

MEMSI | JANUARY 21, 2017

Questions?

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