Welcome to the – last minute startup pitch fixes!
Here are the 5+1 things you can do to have a better startup pitch as early as tomorrow!

Ground zero – You will not be pitching.

Let’s rewire your mind – you are not pitching, you are saying WHY your business is great, important, one of a kind, smart, sexy, wow …etc. In your startup pitch, you are actually telling a story about your business.

Define your vision.

What are you trying to do with your startup? What is the ultimate goal? WHY are you in this business, WHY is it amazing, WHY we need to care about it?

Defining your vision will stop you from having a raw selling pitch – what Sinek calls the ‘taker’ presentation. Selling pitches are a bit boring, the audience gets discouraged quickly (like you would, listening to a sales pitch over the phone) and you do not want your audience (hint – investors) to get bored or discouraged.

What is the big opportunity?

The vision breeds the opportunity – if you are about to change the world, don’t just speak about the parts for the recycle machine, speak about WHY it can be great for the entire world in many years to come. Not just till you get the investment.

Write down your startup pitch story.

Slide by slide. Learn it, repeat it. All evening long. Then tomorrow, do it again. Those 5 or 3 minutes should become like a Rihanna song to you – you should always be able to tell it, day or night. In the course of practicing you will detect places where you can stop, change the tone, accentuate, and make a joke.

Learn it by heart, then improvise. You will be surprised how effective this is – in only two days (or one and a half).

Be precise about what are you asking for.

I see way too many pitches that give you no reason to participate. What are you looking for? Why are you on stage? Do you need money, connections, advice, PR…? Some people are ashamed to ask and some others simply forget. But the key is to be clear and give the reason why you are asking for it. It should come out from your pitch story.

Practice in front of the mirror and a clock.

Depending on how much time you have for your startup pitch, set the timer and start. Do it as many times as needed. The first two times will seem stupid and awkward but continue. You will start to like it, believe it or not.

The best thing about this is that you will get used to hearing your voice

Include a tweetable in your startup pitch!

Say something cool. If this gives you chills (eg / you think you are not cool enough) then borrow something cool. (always add credits)

Why do this? There are two reasons-  the tweetable is securing your life on social media – people love short, smart, usable sentences. And love to share them. You can also think of it as – what can I teach this crowd listening to me?
What is the single sentence that I would like to leave them with (if nothing else)? Smart, relevant things make the pitch valuable, for all involved.

To get you extra hyped about your startup pitch, I warmly recommend the famous ‘Start With Why’ talk.

Start tonight *or today, and let me know how did it go.

Yours truly,

PB