Some Feedback you Should Consider for your Pitch

4 min read

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In a practice session with Miles T. Bird of Tuesday Capital, several founders took turns pitching their startups. Miles provided feedback for each of them, some of which was common amongst their pitches. Here are some of the most important points he made for each founder.

The First Presenter’s Feedback:

Always start your pitch with the problem statement & solution off the bat & close with your experience/history. (i.e.“This is for that”, “uber for doctors”)
Eliminate any use of the word actually from your pitch.
Explain what you’re doing up front and get the problem up front.
Your pitch should focus on quantifying exactly why and how you are relevant to the team and why the company is relevant (i.e. the company drove in x amount of revenue, increased x by y).

The Second Presenter’s Feedback:

It may be more helpful if can provide more examples. Condense your problems into one simplified statement: a one sentence line that would resonate with a kindergartner (use b2b, cloud, online) – using the investor’s language.
Make sure you get to where the business is today and then get into background at the end.
Don’t focus so much on the impact that your pitch turns into fluff.
Social impact should be self evident and focus in on why the team is such a strong team. It could be displayed as an unfair advantage for an early stage company. Show that you can hire employees because of your social impact (if this applies).

The Third Presenter’s Feedback:

I loved the enthusiasm and the closing statement.
I would work on getting rid of any umms & ahhs
Define terms that are essential to the understanding of the problem (i.e. more about what collective action is).
Put the round & fundraising goal you’re at at the end of your pitch
If you have more than 2-3 minutes – dig into your story
With a short pitch time, focus on the story, problem & why you’re excited and also convey credibility
Convey where the business is today briefly

Q: Should people discuss competitors in their pitch?

A: Only use if there’s a way to convey why there’s an opportunity (aka competitors that are perceived to have total market share)

The Fourth Presenter’s Feedback

There is some disconnect between the problem statement and the solution
Make sure the problem is a relatable problem to the community and is big and widespread rather than siloed to yourself or your community (personal problem versus the problem that everyone is stuck in their phone and it’s increasing depression, suicide, etc.)
Make sure your solution clearly answers the problem
Instead of saying “okay so why are we doing this?” say “we are doing this because…” – make sure you don’t sound scripted.

The Fifth Presenter’s Feedback

Take the ego out & just have one founder present. Later you can introduce the other founder but just have one person pitch.
It’s important you focus on solving the problem rather than focusing on categorizing (yoga marketplace rather than health tech)
Don’t explain things you don’t know (cool *insert tech name*) don’t do that unless you know what *tech name* is.

The Sixth Presenter’s Feedback

You typically have a short time with an investor – ex briefly at an event
3 minute pitch
Last thing an investor wants is a 3 minute turbo speech that’s super rehearsed, they just want a natural conversation
Always have the confidence. It’s really nice when founders articulate where they’re at using investor, fundraising, founder language. (pre-launch, beta users, pre-product market fit, scale, etc.).
Put up front where you are from a business traction standpoint and then explaining where the metrics are resonates with the investors.