What REALLY Happened at Pitch Perfect

I have always been against the CV scanning way of hiring because I can’t really tell anything about someone from an A4 sheet of paper, especially if they are going to just state the good stuff. A good friend of mine M hits the nail on the head when he says “Everyone is a noob at a new job because they have never done it before, no matter what they did previously.”

Which is why we at Venn hire for cultural fit, hunger, hustle, curiosity, resourcefulness, willingness to get your hands dirty (literally AND figuratively) and ability to get stuff done.

All these things can’t be seen from a resume, and one can usually tell more from a quick face to face chat than a laundry list of “achievements”.

So I thought it would be fun to have a pitch event just like American Idol or Shark Tank; where it’s more about who you are, what you can do and more importantly, what you want going forward instead of just a list of stuff you have done before.

Anyway, the nutshell is we succeeded in helping at least 4 people get in the door of Uber, Netflix, Spotify and Chope; we also succeeded in getting at least 2–3 more people interest from other hiring managers (amongst them Dropbox, Facebook, Servis Hero, Symphony, Red Hat, etc) lurking in the audience. We also got some really glowing press from Channel News Asia and HRM Asia (Thanks See Kit and Fiona!).

But in the spirit of keeping it real, here’s what REALLY went on behind the scenes:

2 months pre Pitch Perfect

Being event noobs, we ask for help from a friend who does events; they agree to help us out by sourcing for venues and vendors for F&B, AV, etc. We reiterate the “we have NO money” line about 10x. They come back to us with caterers who quote us some ridiculous sum for “French luxury canapes”, and that’s not even including the cost for everything else. We LOFAO and decide to do everything ourselves.

1.5 months pre Pitch Perfect

OMG we still have no venue! And our panelists’ availability is contingent on date which is pending confirmation of venue! Every venue we have seen is either too big, too small, too out of the way, too ghetto … I’m feeling you, Goldilocks. Then we find the “perfect” venue and the office manager is a huge fan of the concept, but then we get mysteriously refused by her faceless boss men, meh.

Luckily, a cry for help on Facebook to friends yields results — a friend comes forward to offer her restaurant (thank you, June!) and Ana from The Co says yes, she would be happy to sponsor. Thank God. WE HAVE A VENUE.

1 month pre Pitch Perfect

I had four ideal people in mind when I first dreamed up this event. I had first mooted it to Aki casually in June over lunch and he had kindly agreed to be part of the panel, if the dates allowed. I also knew I wanted Sunita on the panel; she has always been hugely supportive of us and is one of the warmest people I know. Drake of course was a shoo-in because he and Aki used to be colleagues at Uber and I knew the chemistry would be great between the two. And of course, because we are all about personality at Venn, I knew that Dinesh being an all round standup guy and a huge pop culture fan, would love to be part of it.

Now, the challenge would be to get all four in the same room on the same date and time together. With their insane schedules, it will take nothing short of a bloody miracle.

3 weeks before Pitch Perfect

WE HAVE A MIRACLE. Everyone said YES. OH. MY. GOD. It’s actually happening.

Aight, time to get the word out and market the hell out of this.

2 weeks before Pitch Perfect

What do you mean we have only sold 35 tickets??? But but … we have a blurb in The Straits Times (Thanks Yan Min)! Well, right at the bottom below Carousell’s 47 million cash infusion, but hey, we ain’t gonna complain. Luckily we have already filled almost all the presenting slots, so I am somewhat relieved.

Besides, I am having quite a bit of fun creating and sending out snarky EDMs in MailChimp.

I am initially devastated we only have a 50% open rate and a click through rate of 15% … until CTO rolls his eyes and tells me to stop being silly because those numbers are off the charts. Ooops. This is what happens when you grow up in an Asian family, where anything below 80% (sometimes higher) is considered complete utter failure.

I email one of the presenters who appears to be based in London; Misha tells me he was just waiting for us to confirm his shortlist before he booked a ticket to Singapore. Wow. Dedication! O_O

1 week before Pitch Perfect

Someone mentions we might need sustenance for attendees. Oh bollocks, I forgot to follow up about that. I ask F&B friends to see if someone might be kind enough to either sponsor or operate a cash bar at the event. Sadly our event is deemed too tiny to lug their food and staff down; but luckily George (THE Spiffy Dapper himself!) kindly offers to give us some coconut milkshakes from Coco Shake Shack. Thank you, buddy!

One of our photographers tells us he has HFMD. Oh noes.

Must remember to send out press release soon; only to select quality journalists from respected news publications, obviously. I love working with See Kit from Channel News Asia and Fiona from HRM Asia; they are consummate professionals.

5 days before Pitch Perfect

Go cycling to clear my mind and promptly fall off the bicycle, resulting in a sprained wrist, some nasty looking bruises and abrasions on my shoulder, knees and hands. Brilliant, Candice, just fucking brilliant. Get even more pissy when people ask me if I got injured playing Pokemon Go. Fuck off.

4 days before Pitch Perfect

Arrange to meet the presenters individually before the event to go through their slides and delivery; at Venn, like at Hogwarts, help is always given to those who ask for it. I give my two cents on content and delivery and wish everyone luck.

3 days before Pitch Perfect

OK we have sold over 50 tickets. I can rest easy now. But wait! We still have no food for our guests. Visions of a hangry mob chanting “FOOD FOOD WE WANT FOOD” fill my dreams at night. Please don’t eat me.

2 days before Pitch Perfect

Yuner comes to the rescue with discount codes from UberEats … apparently we are one of the first events to get the code apart from Singapore Food Festival! Welp, best we can do under the circumstances short of ringing for pizza. Hmmm.

1 day before Pitch Perfect

Calmness before the storm. Praying that everything goes off smoothly with no major FUBARs. OMG we are sold out of all 80 tickets!

D-Day aka Pitch Perfect!

We rock up to set up at 6pm because that’s when everyone clears out from The Co. Omg we only have half an hour to set up and get shit done before people start arriving. Fuck.

630pm: Lauren (our amazing host) turns up and starts briefing presenters.

7pm: Panelists turn up. More people turn up. Omg who is going to check tickets?! We need a bouncer. Andrew was supposed to do it but NO ONE is going to take him seriously in a Savile Row suit.

730pm: Lauren starts herding everyone and getting it all started. Don’t know what I would have done without her and the team. She introduces me and I obviously just make something up about what we do then move it along to the presenters.

Omg, everyone is amazing. I am not surprised obviously because come on, we picked them exactly for that reason. I am so proud of all of them for having the courage and belief to be part of our inaugural Pitch Perfect. Audience is lovin’ it with lots of laugher and applause all around.

9pm: Panelists go away to discuss while everyone goes for a loo break. I let on that we got limited edition Moet for the panelists as a token of appreciation and Sunita sacrifices hers. Aki pops it and we all have a bit of an early celebratory bubbly. Whee!

930pm: Winners are announced and invitations for follow up interviews are issued. I am so glad that some presenters got a foot in the door of their dream companies and others got to network and get valuable feedback.

11pm: OK people need to start leaving so we can start packing up. I have said bye to some people like 5 times. I mean, we love you guys but our team hasn’t eaten since 5pm and we are dying.

1130pm: Get home and promptly pass out.

1 day after Pitch Perfect

Realise I have not eaten a thing in the last 17 hours. Decide to take the day off before I realise we need to send photographs and get all follow up press queries sorted. Bug Joel for photographs (sorry and thank you Joel!).

Congratulations start pouring in from attendees and friends etc. Enquires about a second event also start pouring in, both from employers and job seekers.

Would we do this again? Maybe. Follow us on our Facebook page to check out the photos and sign up to our newsletter on our website to find out! ;)