The art of pitching

3 min readSep 26, 2016

This week we write about our pitching philosophy.

This blog is a weekly reflection of WorkHound’s time at Dynamo, a logistics-focused accelerator based in Chattanooga, TN. This is week 11.

The art of pitching

5 minutes can determine the future of our business. That moment is coming up for us in a few days. Demo day for the Dynamo Accelerator is one week away and all teams are in full pitch prep mode.

Pitching is both an art and a science. Style over substance won’t work. The audience is smarter than that. But style matters. And substance matters. The presentation needs to evoke feelings. This helps drive the facts home.

But the goal of a pitch isn’t to sell or to get investment dollars right away. The goal is to get the first conversation. Then get the meeting to do a formal pitch.

Feelings over facts

A pitch is like click bait — do whatever the hell it takes to hook your audience.

There is one question we ask when putting together a presentation. What are the things we need to share to get someone to talk more with us about sales or investing? That’s it.

We don’t need to detail every aspect of our business. Some things we leave out because we want people to ask us after the presentation. Others are because they aren’t exciting facts.

We highlight the insights that turn heads. This is the feeling we shoot for when we present:

For Dynamo’s program we are assembling 2 minute investor pitches and a 5 minute demo day pitch. It’s an exhausting exercise to fit what we live and breathe into such a short time span. But this kind of exercise helps us sell.

Play to the goal

We are fortunate that this is our second demo day pitch. Being a bit more seasoned helps us keep calm nerves and set expectations.

The goal for us is simple: get prospective customers and investors to talk with us. Then we set a separate meeting with them. We’re building relationships with people. Nobody wants to get married on the first date.

Demo day is a closing of one chapter, but the immediate launch of another: deal closing. We’re excited to see the end of this ride, but there’s another only a week away.

Read our previous posts about our time at Dynamo

WorkHound Joins Dynamo // Week 1 Recap // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4// Week 5 // Week 6 // Week 7 // Week 8 // Week 9 // Week 10

What is WorkHound?

WorkHound is a software platform built to help carriers keep drivers and improve the truck driver experience. Truck drivers use their smartphones to share feedback and ideas with the carrier, which WorkHound aggregates and turns into actionable insights to help manage and retain drivers. WorkHound is co-founded by Andrew Kirpalani and Max Farrell.