Pitching A Business – TechCrunchTalk

Benjamin Ellis — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:50:07 +0000

This week’s TechCrunch event was a rare treat: 8 European startups pitching. TechCruncheMike Butcher gave the start ups 90 seconds to pitch their business. The ‘Tech Factor’ panel then responded to the pitch – in very civilised way. Finally the pitcher had 10 seconds to even the score… Erm… I mean clarify their pitch. I love preparing pitches and I love watching them even more, given that some of the companies had had some coaching, I was itching to listen.

The Pitchers

You can see the pitch videos in all their glory here on TechCrunch (and my photos of NewsPepper / TechFluff.tv’s Hermoine Way filming them here). I’m not going to say much about the companies themselves, watch the pitches or visit their websites if you want to know more :- BookingBug, CardCode, Jupidi Date-Coach, Rendezviewonline, Socialibrium, Soundcloud, Quick.tv and Worldeka - a very broad range of company types!

Here are my thoughts on giving effective pitches, based on watching the companies in action (interesting to compare with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Pitchers from last time).

Tackle The Obvious

In any situation there will be some obvious questions. Make sure that you head these questions off by answering them or neutralising them (by making them irrelevant). The best way to find out what these questions are is understanding the interests of you audience, ideally by sounding out some friendly advisors who have a similar perspective. If you are pitching your business to an investor, they’ll want to know how your business is going to make money and increase in value. Pre-empt any objections you are likely to encounter, and handle them up front, and positively!

Win The Audience

In a 90 second pitches there isn’t enough time to convince your audience what a wonderful person you are. Actually, people do a worse job of this given more time. Win the audience over by proxy: Get a laugh or get to you will make my life better. If you can do that, you’re likely to seen as a good egg, even though we’ve don’t actually know you. Make sure we can see the benefit (to us). Soundcloud used a recorded testimonial from Hammer (aka MC Hammer) to kick off, which won the crowd’s attention. There was more social referencing, in listing the company’s big name investors. Nick Bell, from Quick.tv , used a shock joke to very good effect and won the audience with laughter – Nick went on to win the evening’s voting.

Get The Good Stuff in – Early

CardCode got the biggest reaction and cheer for something that wasn’t in their 90 second main pitch: that they had built a QR code reader for the iPhone. It only came out during the Q&A. In a real-world elevator pitch, you don’t know when you are going to run out of time, so don’t leave your most compelling benefits until the end or for next time. If you do, their might not be a next time. Be sure you understand what people are most likely to get excited about, and get it in early.

Be Conversational – Not Corporate

By conversational I mean two way communication, look at how your audience is reacting. Frame things in a way that engages people as individuals (avoid this list of phrases as a minimum: most annoying business speak phrases in the UK). Watching the crowd’s face during Socialibrium’s pitch was telling. The sizzle and the human element was missing. Jupidi’s Date-Coach pitch was very human, perhaps overly so! It got laughs and silence (intense listening!). Both apps were people-centric, but only Jupidi told the story from a human perspective. Socialibrium spoke from a business/corporate angle. Whatever your product or service, always talk about it’s emotional impact. You’ll get listened to more.

Where Were We? Oh… Don’t Get Side Tracked

You only have a short time, be polite, but don’t beat about the bush. This isn’t the time to get distracted or fall down a rat whole. Mike gave (most of) the speakers a “30-seconds to go” prompt. Each speaker dealt with that differently – some were quite distracted by it. Don’t be put off by time running out or by interruptions. Use your time as best you can. If you have 90 seconds and you spend 5 seconds of it lost in commentary about somethingelse, then that’s 5% of your time wasted. Whenever you are presenting, don’t make interuptions any bigger than they need to be. Deal with them if they need dealing with, but then get straight back on track.

Be Concise – Keep It Simple

An elevator pitch isn’t the time to be wordy or elaborate a complex idea. You might feel compelled to talk about the unique object-oriented approach to PHP coding that you used to build your app, but do I really need to know about that to get why your product or service is compelling? If I do, then you better go back and redesign it, because your heading towards a sales and marketing fail. Most struggling start ups I have encountered were held back because they didn’t have a good, solid elevator pitch. It usually took several hours to figure out what it was that they did and why it was beneficial enough to purchase or invest in. That isn’t a receipe for business success.

Last, but not least…

Have a compelling call to action at the end of your pitch. What’s next? A trial? A cash investment? Tell friends about the company?

Not a bad set of pitches, but I’m sure each of the companies will walk away with lessons to be learnt. Nick Bell of Quick.tv had the added benefit of walking away with a nice bottle as a prize!

Larry Lessig – Copyright and Great Presenting

Benjamin Ellis — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:07:59 +0000

I’m a regular follower of TED, watching as many of the TED talks as my Mac can take. The talks range from inspirational to informative, and sometimes they are both. Larry Lessig’s recently posted TED talk is fascinating, both for its content and for the way that he uses slides in his presentation. It was a post at Presentation Zen that prompted me to post on some of the techniques Larry uses. Larry is a professor of law at Stanford Law School, an author and blogs on the Lessig Blog.

Larry’s overview of the shifting world of content and copyrights and wrongs is truly thought provoking. The tectonic shift happening around creative commons is something anyone in the information industry should familiarise themselves with. The way that Larry communicates his message is noteworthy. Here are a few things he does that you can easy to apply to your own presentations:

Using visuals to emphasise your emphasis!
Illustrating using parallel stories.
Anchoring key concepts in order to back reference them.
Silence is more powerful that words.

Watch the talk, then read the explanations.

Use visuals to signal your emphasis

This is huge part of what your slides should be about, visually highlighting your verbal message. A slide with one word calls that word out when you speak it. It makes it stick and it makes it stand out. It works for short phrases too. Notice the use of black on white, then reversed white on black in the slides.

Illustrate using parallel stories.

We aren’t always great at getting things when they come at us head on, but we do get a story. Notice how Larry uses the story of flight and trespass, weaving it across into his message. If you want to get a complex issue across, it is easier to explain it in terms of something that is already familiar or that is less complex. Is there a parallel story to the one you want to tell? Tell that first, then link your concepts back to it. People will understand more and remember more.

Anchor key concepts then back reference them

Notice how Larry anchors his points with a word or a visual, then uses that later to reference back to his point. This is a great communication technique. When you make a point, anchor it with a visual or a distinctive phrase. You can then use this visual or phrase to remind people of that concept later in your presentation. It is a bit like creating a short cut or a bookmark that you can click later. Visual anchors make a rapid connection, in fractions of a second. As soon as you see the image of those planes in the last part of the presentation, you reconnect with his first story. Powerful isn’t it?

Silence is more powerful than words

One of the most impactful points I have seen made from a slide was made by not reading or mentioning the last point on the slide. In Larry’s presentation, there is the moment where he puts up a slide and mentions the TED ‘no commercials’ rule. Job done. Not reading a bullet point, or putting up a slide then not commenting on it, actually communicates something. In a smaller audience, it can cause people to ask about it, which is a great dynamic. Silence can be a communication tool.

Larry’s presentation is great, although he doesn’t engage with slides in the way that Al Gore does (see A presentation from Al Gore), which leaves you wondering when to look where. Also his eyes didn’t always connect with audience, but he makes very good use of pauses and word emphasis and is a pleasure to listen to all the same. Compelling content and presentation.

In your next presentation try anchoring your key points with simple visuals and tell a clear story.

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