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As someone who pitched on stage yesterday I have mixed feelings on this subject. I understand that seeing a graph up and to the right on every single slide, 74
by cwilson 14y ago
As someone who pitched on stage yesterday I have mixed feelings on this subject. I understand that seeing a graph up and to the right on every single slide, 74 times in a row, might get a little repetitive. That said, you're also getting pitched by 74 companies who actually have graphs that are up and to the right. You're being pitched by companies who have been focusing on nothing but acquiring users, talking to users, learning from users, and building in parallel. Many of us took money from those users. By making sure we realized graphs that go up and to the right would be a standard on which we were judged, we were all essentially "tricked" into doing something that SHOULD be obvious for any entrepreneur, which is doing nothing but talking to users, building a product users like, signing users up, and ultimately charging users (this isn't always something to focus on from day one depending on the product). Everyone else is going to have a graph that goes up and to the right? Shit, I better as well! What I'm trying to say is, being pitched by companies who are already doing this well in such a short amount of time should be a good thing.
While 2:15 is most definitely short, it also gets you thinking about the 2 - 3 things that you want potential investors to remember about you. How can we be most effective in the least amount of time? It's an amazing exercise and it's very helpful for pitching in the future.
After pitching, the investors who really love your vision or idea let you know they are interested, and you have plenty of time to tell them more, show them your product, etc.
- robryan 14y agoI think the issue is that any startup can produce a metric in which they have a nice graph going up and to the right, no doubt some of the 75 companies are likely far more attractive than others but it probably isn't clear without followup which those are. At the same time I am not sure you can do it any other way and still have the time for everyone to see all the pitches. You are right that longer presentations with a group this big would probably result in most of the audience forgetting most of what they see.
- mirsadm 14y agoI imagine it would be frustrating for companies which have actual real revenue and growth as opposed to ones that have grown 800% from 1 to 8 users in 3 months.
- cwilson 14y agoI don't disagree, but I also think this system is a great way for investors to get a quick glimpse of a ton of awesome companies at once, and find the ones they are most interested in and chat more. Someone else in this thread already mentioned this, but the point of the pitch is not to close a deal. That takes multiple conversations, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. Personally, I only want to talk to investors who are actually interested in our space, or have expertise and connections in the space, especially when there are hundreds in the room (half the conversations would be a complete waste of time otherwise).
- robryan 14y agoTrue. The accelerator that operates out of the space I work at, they emphasised the idea of including a slide about what type of people the startup is primarily interested in working with.
- shasta 14y agoIt looks like there's room to really stand out by drawing a graph that goes up and to the right, then down and to the right, and then up and to the right again.
- pg 14y agoOne of the startups actually did that.