Guide to Effective Idea Pitching
Requirement: You are required to create a 5-minute video pitch as part of your Social
Innovation Award Application. The pitch should demonstrate your passion for your idea and
the issue it is addressing. It should also explain your idea, why it is innovative and how it will
create sustainable transformative impact. The structure and delivery of your pitch is open to
your interpretation but note that you will not be judged on creativity of delivery.
This guide
will explore the basics of good pitching and will offer some suggestions for different methods
of structure and delivery.
Getting Started
An effective pitch requires clarity and impact. You have a short amount of time to convey
your idea, your passion and your vision – to tell the audience who you are, what you do, how
you are going to achieve your goals and why you are unique. Harvard Business School
developed an ‘Elevator Pitch Builder’, and it is a great starting place for anyone new to
pitching. To get to grips with building a basic pitch, check out these resources.
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Social Edge’s ‘Social Entrepreneur’s Pitch’
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Garage Technology Venture’s ‘Perfecting Your Pitch’
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ReadWriteStart’s Investor-focused ‘Art of the Elevator Pitch’
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ReOver Thinking’s Example Investor Slide Deck
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Venture Beat’s ‘How to Nail the 5-minute Pitch’
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Unreasonable’s ‘6 Principles for Making Your Pitch Memorable’
And for the more visual learners, check out these videos about the ‘how to’ of successful
pitching for different audiences.
Competition Pitching
‘Elevator’ Pitching
Investor Pitching
General Pitching
Now that you are ready to start building your pitch, here are a few steps to help.
Effective Pitching Step 1: Remember, people buy into you, not just your idea
State who you are and why you are worthy of their investment.
Investors invest in you as much as your idea. They want to know you have passion,
experience, expertise and integrity so that you can take on the challenge of a new start-up
and make it work. Step 1 is to tell the investors your story in such a way as conveys your
passion and experience. If appropriate, you should also introduce your team (to demonstrate
expertise).
Effective Pitching Step 2: A jargon-free pitch is a happy pitch
Describe your idea clearly and simply. Specifically describe the problem your idea is
addressing and how it will work to solve that problem. Illustrate impact where possible.
There is an old saying in the pitching world: your grandmother and your grandchildren
should both be able to understand the explanation of your idea. Aka – keep it simple.
start, try distilling the description of your idea into one short, sharp sentence.
To
Exercise 1: Create a ‘tagline’ that summarizes your idea.
Example: Teach For America - Help Ensure Educational
Opportunity for All
This video is a good example of how to deliver an
effective jargon-free explanation of your idea.
Once you have your summary, you can begin flesh it out to explain how your idea will
address the problem and what the impact will have. Be clear about the goals of your venture
and how you will measure success. If you have examples of success – from pilots, awards
won, research – be sure to include them to validate your idea for your investors.
Effective Pitching Step 3: Know your numbers
Demonstrate understanding of the market and competitors, how you will get into the market
& sustain/grow your business
David Rose states in his video above that nothing puts him off a potential investment more
than when the pitcher says there is no competition. Every product or service has a
competitor. Being able to articulate your understanding of the market and how your product
will enter and remain sustainable within it is crucial. Watch the pitches below for explains of
effective delivery of some of these key points.
Demonstrates in-depth
Outlines how a product will
Effectively explains a
knowledge of a market
enter & sustain itself within
business growth plan
a market
Additionally, you should outline what your business plan broadly is including how you plan to
enter that market and how you intend to grow your venture in the future (usually in the next
3-5 years). This should include rough numbers illustrating what funding you need to start
and how that investment would be used.
Exercise 2: Terrified of budgets? Use a business
template, such as those created by SCORE or SEI, to
draft a projected budget for your venture.
Effective Pitching Step 4: Put on a good show
When pitching, it helps to differentiate yourself from the pack. The above steps will help you
create a purposeful pitch, but engaging and passionate delivery will keep you memorable. Of
course, remember your audience when approaching any delivery, but be creative in every
aspect of your show: slides, use of props, interaction with your audience, etc. Ultimately,
people buy into you so be confident and practice, practice, practice!
Exercise 3: Practice your pitch on a friend, colleague or
family member. If possible, try to find someone who does
not know much about your idea. Get them to ask
questions about it afterwards.
Watch these winning video pitches from the Mayhem Poets for the Microsoft IdeasWin
competition and Ksplice from the MIT $100,000 business pitch contest for examples of
creative delivery and use of supporting materials.
Demonstrates innovative & effective
Illustrates creative delivery of a pitch
use of presentation slides
A Note on Preparing Slides
Nb. While slides are not required for this competition, this may be a useful tip for future
presentations.
Preparing a slide deck for a pitch can be frustrating but keep in mind that you want the
audience to be listening to you not reading a slide. Any props, such as powerpoint
presentations, should support your delivery, not overpower it so try using pictures as often
you can and limit your text to the bare minimum – think The Colbert Report’s ‘The Word’ or
the presentation (above) from Ksplice.
If you need inspiration for your slide deck, Sliderocket.com has posted all presentations from
the 2011 SXSW Bizspark Accelerator competition, including the finalists.