Uncategorized

The pitch is the last thing that matters at a pitching workshop.

Written By Irina Melnic

On April 23, 2019
"

Read more

0 Comments

— Today you will learn how to pitch and sell your idea!
This is how literally starts any pitching workshop.

The truth is that a pitching workshop might last 2, 4, 8, 10 hours but it never ends with a perfect pitch. Participants, these entrepreneurship novices, startup enthusiasts, still remain with a lot of space for perfection.

BUT IS THE PITCH WHAT REALLY MATTERS AT SUCH A WORKSHOP?

You’ll never know unless you’ve been there as an observer. It’s fascinating. The unconscious journey the participants go through during the workshop is fascinating.

The journey starts with a basic “present yourself” moment when participants get usually blocked about who they truly are. It takes them some long minutes to think and a good amount of words to express themselves. Regardless of the different background each and all of them have ended up saying about their ideas.

– THEY ARE THEIR IDEAS.
Moving on, we have much more to observe. After listing expectations and practicing pitches for the first time, they bumped right into facing and discussing fears. The fear of public speaking is an obvious one. Everybody experiences it. Everyone expects it. Few are going beyond it and at the workshop participants did.

You would never think that deep inside, pitchers might be blocked by the impostor’s syndrome, fear to disappoint people they just met or anxiety of being below the audience’s level.

– FACE YOUR FEARS, THEY DON’T BITE!
Surprise me saying that a pitch has to be a story that triggers the public! Storytelling — the magical part of any public speaking training. Give participants a structure of a story, some time to prepare, some feedback to implement and the perfect pitch is in their pocket. But not so fast.

context -> problem -> solution -> conclusion -> PERFECT STORY

At this point, you could see participants digging deep inside themselves, looking for true reasons of them doing a startup, personal pain points they solve, and that pure motivation that keeps them going.

– MASTER STORYTELLING, YOUR PERSONAL CONFESSION MIGHT BE ADOPTED BY MANY OTHER STRUGGLERS LIKE YOU.
So far the workshop seemed like a therapy but it was not the end. Furthermore, instead of focusing on a perfect pitch, the trainers made participants to time-travel and even mind teleport. Next step startupers did was to try on a new skin, the rough, hard-shelled skin of investors. Think like them, breath like them, be them was challenging. At this exact moment, the participants started to realize what their startups really worth.
– IDEA, TEAM OR THE TECHNOLOGY IS WHAT INVESTORS MONITIZE ABOUT A STARTUP.
THE PITCH IS THE LAST THING THAT MATTERS AT A PITCHING WORKSHOP!

Don’t get me wrong, by the end of the workshop participants’ pitches were fantastic but it was more like a side effect. Your reasons, your value, your needs, yourself never were easy to learn, nor to put it into words and make it shine.

After some good hours of self-discovery, the participants were 99% sure about them as innovators of the problem that is a real pain in the ass (they felt themselves). The solution they came with might be not so brilliant but they learned to highlight its irreplaceable value parts. And when it comes to putting it in practice, they were confident to ask the right resources for making an idea a business. In this case, wrapping up the whole startup into a 30-sec pitch was a matter of a few minutes.

Next time think twice about skipping a pitching/ public speaking/ storytelling/presentation workshop.

The context: It was a Saturday when Mircea Serediuc and Adina Badaluta found some time and knowledge to give at an 8-hour Pitching Workshop. But the true protagonists of that act were 5 finalists Innovation Labs Iasi fully oriented to scale their business idea. And they will, at the Final of Innovation Labs Iasi — Demo Day that is about to come [May 9, 2019].

A sneak pic:

0 Comments