The Botched Pitch
The following is a rendition of a story performed by our CEO and Co-founder, Laura Weidman Powers, at the Case Foundation’s “Sparking a Conversation on Inclusive Entrepreneurship” session at SXSW. Many thanks to Sheila Herrling and the Case team for their hard work in the editing process.
Picture this! It’s a beautiful sunny day in Palo Alto in April 2012. I am over the moon excited to pitch my amazing new idea — CODE2040 — to a panel of funders, founders and academics. I am bouncing on my toes, shaking out my arms and head, anything to diffuse the nerves I feel waiting to try my hand at winning $80,000 in support for my work.
I knew CODE2040 was a great idea. I knew that if we could execute well, it was going to change people, communities, and industries for the better. I mean, to me and my co-founder, Tristan Walker, there was such an obvious market for our business. We both grew up in New York City, surrounded by both diversity and inequality… and realized early on that this was not just inequality of circumstance but of opportunity. I was fortunate to benefit from the strivings of my grandparents and parents, from an amazing public school education, and from a support system that always said “yes — you can do whatever you put your mind to,” but I recognized that not everyone had those kinds of advantages.
We were both advantaged by the career and coaching resources at Stanford Business School — where we met — and by the many doors Stanford opened for us. We wanted to give others the career boost that being part of a curated, resourced network could provide and combine that with a social justice mission to close the wealth gap for communities of color in the United States.
The business case and the market potential were so obvious (to us). The panel I was about to pitch to would clearly be able to see past the fact that we only had two months of operations under our belts. No impact data, all I needed to do was convince them that our idea was a great idea! I had this!
I had spent a month prepping, writing and rewriting drafts of business plans, sending them around for feedback to anyone who would look at them, and tweaking charts, graphs, and quotes on slides to create maximum impact on the judges. On paper, my materials were great, and they needed to be: a winning pitch would net me an $80,000 investment, our biggest to date, and send a strong signal to the market that we were fundable.
Which brings me back to that fateful day in April: I walked into the room. I looked at those judges standing between me and the $80,000 that could propel CODE2040 forward.
And……….. I choked.
I couldn’t find my words. I couldn’t find my energy. I fumbled through the material, reading half of it off my slide notes.
When it came to Q&A, I was practically shaking with nerves. One of the judges, a white male professor with no knowledge of community we hoped to serve, became increasingly belligerent, insisting that the concept had no legs and we were seeing problems where there were none. I was stunned to speechlessness.
When those painful 45 minutes were over, I retreated from the room so the judges could deliberate. As I left, I could see the expressions on their faces — they looked almost as relieved to see me leave the room as I was to leave it.
I did not walk away with the $80,000 prize. The judges felt I “wasn’t ready for investment.” And, you know, based solely on my pitch, I would have made the same decision.
I’ve thought a lot about that day. Yes, I blew it presentationally. Yes, I should have practiced more. But I also realized that sometimes the best pitch, and not the best idea, wins.
I was at a disadvantage in that room because none of the judges had firsthand experience with the problem we were trying to solve. The loud judge’s method of questioning got them further from the insights they would have needed to understand the idea, and shook me enough that I wasn’t able to steer the conversation back. I knew that moving forward I couldn’t assume that judges were starting from a place of understanding our community and their strengths and needs.
As crushed as I was to lose in 2012, I knew that it would be the first of many defeats and no’s. I needed to use the experience to fail forward, learn from my mistakes, and go back the next year with a pitch that took the skeptics into account.
One year later, imagine this: It’s a beautiful sunny day in Palo Alto. I am bouncing on my toes again outside the very same room. I pitch. I answer questions. And…..drum roll please……I win! That early money paved the way for me to go on to raise several million dollars in support for CODE2040 to date.
