I'm a startup pitch coach. I help Madrid-based startups identify their “essential story” and sell it to investors through a concise, exciting elevator pitch. When I worked in Deloitte consulting for 3 years I worked on a lot of pitches. Out of those we lost, I noticed two main errors:
1) We lost sight of our essential story by trying to include all of the information we had available.
2) We didn't tell that essential story in a concise, exciting way. In the last year I've worked with over 100 startups in Madrid and have realised that getting a pitch right is even more important for startups. Unlike big companies, if you miss the opportunity to sell your idea to an investor, all of your work is worth literally 0 euros/pounds/Colombian pesos. More importantly, if we don’t get good at this the world will miss out on thousands of ideas that could change everything. Not just bendable smart phones and virtual reality, but limitless solar energy and ways to make any water drinkable, anywhere. The bottom line: If you want to excite people, you need to make your pitch less like a conventional presentation and more like Game of Thrones. Fewer pie charts, more story (and possibly more dragons). Pitch better, sell more.
