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.

- Social Edge’s ‘Social Entrepreneur’s Pitch’- Garage Technology Venture’s ‘Perfecting Your Pitch’- ReadWriteStart’s Investor-focused ‘Art of the Elevator Pitch’- ReOver Thinking’s Example Investor Slide Deck- Venture Beat’s ‘How to Nail the 5-minute Pitch’- 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. To start, try distilling the description of your idea into one short, sharp sentence.

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 knowledge of a market

Outlines how a product will enter & sustain itself within a market

Effectively explains a business growth plan

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!

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.

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.

Demonstrates innovative & effective use of presentation slides

Illustrates creative delivery of a pitch

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.