You’re not trying hard enough.

This is what I assured Jamison and Chelsea as they prepared to take the stage at Gangplank’s Extreme Pitch Night…the perfect conclusion to a killer GEW. 

GEW (Global Entrepreneurship Week) is celebrated by entrepreneurs far and wide, and we made sure to make the most of it here in Arizona. 

On Tuesday of GEW we were lucky to host Don Valentine (he was incredible!), Wednesday local incubator, MAC6, officially launched, Thursday ASU SkySong held Techiepalooza, and Friday Furnace announced the first cohort of winners and Gangplank hosted Extreme Pitch.  An exhilarating week highlighting all that is good and growing in Arizona.

At Extreme Pitch Chelsea was first to take the stage and was a ball of nerves as she prepared to present her cake company, Iced for Life.  She got up in front of the crowd and gave a confident presentation of her business and why she is going to be successful.  She still has room for improvement in the pitch category (she admittedly left out a few key points), but where she really shined was in the Q&A session.  Every single question that was asked was followed by a strong and educated answer - she demonstrated that she knows her business inside and out and her passion was obvious. This is where the Lean LaunchPad work really paid off.

Chelsea could site specific evidence and resources for all of her answers. 

She had done the work and it showed.

Next was Jamison…and while he was much less visibly anxious, he admitted to me that he was quite nervous just before he pitched.  Jamison delivered one of the most polished and poised pitches I have ever seen.  He is excellent at telling the user’s story…making you feel the pain…and explaining how his product, Repair Report, solves the problem.

His slides were clean and his message was clear.  And then he was confronted with a Q&A session that was much more challenging: One of the judges did not believe that shops (one if his customer segments in a multi-sided model) would post repairs - a key aspect of the value proposition.

Jamison confidently reasoned his way through the Q&A and presented well-supported answers to the challenges - again…the customer development work provided specific answers and plenty of data to show that he had done the work and had tested his model.

In the end, Jamison won 3rd place and Chelsea was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” and was able to make two potential partnership connections and at least a handful of new cake customers.  All in all, a big win for two new entrepreneurs. I was very proud of them for getting up in front of a crowd and putting themselves and their businesses out for critique.  After all, you should feel scared and uncomfortable on a regular basis as an entrepreneur, right?

Key Learning Points

1.  Pitches are important, but an average, concise pitch (you still need to communicate well) followed by questions answered well, with conviction, and with supporting data can be even more valuable.  If you give a well-rehearsed and polished pitch, but fall short in Q&A, nothing you said in your pitch matters any longer.  The Q&A is where the cream rises…

2.  Customer Development truly makes you a better investment.  Watching these two explain with confidence why and how they had validated an assumption was magical.  First-hand data is really powerful…empowering for the entrepreneur to use in a presentation and powerful for the potential investor to hear and gain confidence.

3.  The age-old rule is true: Practice Makes Perfect. Pitch constantly…pitch at every competition or event possible.  Put yourself out there when the stakes are low, and then when the stakes are high you will dominate.

My MGT 494 class (minus Sharon and Edgar)