Secrets to a 5 Minute Pitch

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We’re doing a Five Minute Pitch on Wed at Launch Pad.  Here is the coaching guidance that I just sent out to the companied presenting.

  • format – we are going to hold you to 5 min, so be sure to keep your pitch tight and focused.  this is plenty of time if you are rehearsed and gives you an opportunity to communicate about your company or project in a way that will keep the audiences attention and hopefully spark conversation with you afterwards.
  • goal – what do you want to accomplish?  start there, think about that deeply.  are you trying to raise funding, attract users/customers, generate press? utilize this forum to accomplish something for your business. focus on achieving that goal and don’t worry if your pitch isn’t broad enough to be interesting to everyone.  that’s why we’re keeping them to 5 min. this is not an exercise, this is an opportunity to accomplish something for your business.
  • ask – close (and maybe open too) with your ask.  be specific and be clear.  ie: 1) we’re looking to find new school customers, so if you know anyone in education, please refer me to them. 2) we’re currently raising a seed round of $500k and have $200k committed.  3) we are looking to generate awareness about our platform so please follow us @yourname and tweet about us 4) we’re looking for beta users to please sign up on www.yourwebsitename.com for an invite.
  • practice – please, please, please give your pitch out loud, standing up.  if you don’t you will run too long.  You will have 100x improvement in your pitch by giving it several times, getting feedback, doing more of whats working, less of whats not.  ask for candid feedback.  treat this as the real-deal, not a practice.  you want to be proud of your pitch.
  • show, don’t tell – if you have a product, show it, demo it if you can do it very quickly.  1-2 min videos are great, b/c you can prepare them in advance and they can be extremely professional. live demos are difficult to do, if you are going to do it, please have someone else to “drive”.  screenshots of your product are actually much better than a live demo.  remember, the audience doesn’t know your product nearly as well as you do, so showcase the “wow” factor, but don’t expect them to understand it and don’t try to do a deep dive about how it works.  focus on the sexy and sizzle.
  • elevator pitch arc – there are lots of blog posts about what people want to hear in an elevator pitch.  this obviously varies depending on what your goal is.  but have a clear outlined format, don’t just talk. you’ll be judged by the audience as much on your professionalism and clarity in approach as you will on your product.  remember to touch on things like: problem, solution, market, team, traction, business model.
  • deck –  i’d recommend keeping it to 5-8 slides, unless you are able to run your preso very tightly and succinctly.  don’t read whats on the slide, use the slide for backup and then give context, explanation or tell a story.  make sure that what you are saying connects with the slides but you are not reading bullet points, nothing is more dull.
  • get excited! relax and have fun – the coaching advice here is to help you be prepared and confident. practicing beforehand will give you confidence and help you relax. make sure your excitement about your company comes through, excitement is contagious. this is a friendly audience, everyone is rooting for you. you will be great.

Here are some resources that I like:

Art without Commerce is a Hobby

Art without commerce is a hobby.

Chef Joe Bastianich offered up this statement in the NY Times magazine as his motto a few weeks back, and it resonated with me.

I’ve been having lots of conversations lately with people who are trying to crack the business model code for art.  Benjamin Reece, Robert Fogarty, Ross Hinkle are all building businesses around beautiful artistic expression.  But they’re building businesses, so commerce is key.

Business model options might be:

  • Consumer pays to consume the content
  • Brands pay to commission and be integrated into content
  • Advertisers pay to post ads beside the content
  • Give away the art to generate service business

What other methods of monetization do you see? What do you think works best?

Platforms like Kickstarter are today’s version of art patronage with a crowd-funded model, but they just fund the creation of art, not revenue generation from the art.  Ben pointed me to this post by Mark Cuban about the exhaustion facing content creators.  The bottom line is the independent artistic content production business is incredibly difficult to monetize.

We stand at an inflection point in the creation of content.  The cost of the tools to produce professional quality content have fallen dramatically, and more people than ever before are creating art as “prosumers.”  Yet the ability to capture value from content is has not yet been disintermediated, the traditional payment gateways are still firmly in place, and new models have yet to emerge.

Most content creation businesses remain controlled by the traditional gatekeepers to the content.  People pay monthly cable bills, buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and concert tickets yet have been trained not to pay for these services on the web.

As internet content consumption moves away from the computer towards other devices, it seems important to build these monetization schemes into the platforms that control access to the content.   Apple has trained people to pay for apps by making it easy and affordable.  What will happen with the emergence of set-up boxes?

Its crucial that people creating art can make a living doing it.  Let’s find the commerce for art.

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