Having been at the ground floor of a startup before I’ve experienced writing the first lines of code, shipping a product, and then getting …
Having been at the ground floor of a startup before I’ve experienced writing the first lines of code, shipping a product, and then getting acquired, but I never had the experience of pitching or seeing someone else do. Last Wednesday I did my first pitch for my startup, BizeeBee, in front of about 75 people, a panel of 4 angel investors, and alongside 7 other founders. While this might seem nerve-wrecking to most, it was an experience I had been looking forward to for months. I finally felt like a founder! The event was sponsored by DukeGEN and limited to founders from Duke.
The reason I really liked this format was that before the founders presented the Angels took the time to tell us what they were looking for. Each pitch last 6 minutes and there was a 3 minute Q&A period following each founders pitch. Before announcing the winners, the Angels spent time giving each business feedback, which I found to be extremely valuable because I got to experience first hand how they evaluate and think about business ideas.
Here’s what the angel’s were looking for:
- Getting to the heart of the product and what problem it is solving
- Large market
- Explanation of Customer Acquisition strategy
- Team: strong technical and business members
- Polished presentation and understanding of each component of your business
Here’s what the Angels focused on during the QA and it making their final decisions:
- Many of them questioned the actual market size, and drilled into the numbers presented.
- How robust the technology was compared to competitors, and if it was enough of a differentiator.
- How much of the product had already been built out. Having an actual prototype versus a PowerPoint presentation was more powerful.
- How capable the founding team was of executing on the business and technical side.
- Traction and having customers that were using the product.
- The methods used for attracting customers. Angels really care about your distribution model.
I came in third place. Here’s the feedback I personally received (yes I’m still leaving my readers in the dark about my product):
- Great team, brand, UI, and simple product proposal.
- Given that I’m targeting the SMB space, they were concerned about how scalable my business model is given how fragmented of a space I’m operating in.
- They did emphasize the need for a couple more key hires such as a VP of Engineering and VP of Sales.
- Traction – they’d like to see the customer feedback, how the product and brand awareness will spread, and if I’ll be able to start making money off of customers.
One final note, I want to thank my teammates Liz and John for all their support and hard work that went into helping me prepare the prototype and the pitch! I couldn’t have done it without either of them 🙂
