3 Tips for Winning Business Plan Competitions

What Ali Velshi and I knew about the Art of the Pitch

“Why don’t you try pitching at a business plan competition?” my buddy, let’s call him Aaron, says.

At the time, Aaron was an MBA school student at Stanford, and I was not. So I took Aaron’s idea seriously. What did I have to loose, I was just a kid with a little medical device prototype, hacking with a few friends out of our living room.

The funny thing about business plan competitions is, winning the first one is hard. But after you’ve crafted your pitch, winning the next one becomes easier. We pitched and won our first competition, at the University of California, Davis. After that, I figured that I might as well pitch at other competitions. And so I continued — I applied to every competition that I could find across the country. And I won, again, and again, and again — at Yale, Berkeley, Pittsburg, Irvine, Maryland, etc etc.

To maximize the number of competitions that I could win, I hired a friend to pitch as my stunt double, whenever I had competitions scheduled for the same time. I’d be pitching at one, while my friend pitched at another.

I did so many competitions that Ali Velshi, a CNN reporter, interviewed me about my doing business plan competitions. Ali Velshi reported on economics and politics for CNN. Over the course of two months, Ali and his camera crew flew in to film my team and I in our living room, at our customer sites, and at our pitch competitions. I ended up getting a segment on CNN broadcasting how I pitch my business plan, on national television.

On March 25, 2007, my segment “Deal or no deal?” aired on CNN. A CNN anchor begins talking about wars continuing in Iraq, oh and more people died in Afghanistan, oh and a triple suicide in Iraq… oh and it’s time to cue in Tia Gao! My bit felt a lot like Shark Tank, before Shark Tank came along.

“Why would CNN want to show you pitching on the air?” A friend asked me.

“Because they needed comic relief. Those were the gloomy days of the Bush administration. The usual news stories was were about the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our crumbling economy. Ali Velshi needed a brighter story to tell. Need comic relief? Cue in Tia.”

After months of hanging out with a CNN reporter and winning pitches, here are the most important lessons I learned. With these tips, you too can win your business plan competition:

1. Start with an idea that has real-world impact

First, your idea needs to be something that makes a difference in the real world. Most of the time, those ideas impact real-world industries, like energy, transportation, food, healthcare. And not virtual industries like social networks, messaging apps, mobile games, etc.

2. Watch the winners

Buy videos of international business plan competitions. As you watch, pay attention to the nuance of the winning performances: notice how their pace goes up and down, how their tone changes deeper and lighter, how they use of props for added affect, how they use rhythm in their words and repeat that rhythm to create a lasting ring in the judges minds. These are all important in the art of the pitch.

3. Pitch this story arc: my story, the world’s story, our progress

Suppose you had an idea for a mini solar panel, where someone can plug it into any device to make the device solar-powered. Start by pitching a very specific personal pain point, for example: <x number> of families in <x region> do not get electricity at home. You were one of those families. Then tell how your problem helps families get electricity, so they can cook, charge their iPhones, read at night, etc.

Next, extrapolate the problem to a world-wide problem —leave the audience the impression that your idea will expand to save the world.

Then, stun the judges by unveiling the progress you’ve made. Do the unveil slowly, one reveal at a time. — <x families> are using our solar-panels … <x countries> have signed partnerships … <x more families> projected by end of this year … <x more countries> by end of next year.

Finally, ask for money — but ask it at the point of your arc where you’ll leave your judges thinking “of course we have to give this money so her so she can do what she needs to do to save the world.” Barak Obama does this often in his speeches. For example, take his speech at the Democratic Convention yesterday. His story: I’m a little nervous right now but I’ve grown a lot. This nation’s story: the country is stressed but it has come a long way in the last 8 years. Our progress: health insurance for everyone, better student loan policies, unemployment rates at its 8 year low, etc. The same story arc is used over and over again in Obama’s speeches: my story, this country’s story, our progress, then a call to action at the end. He gives you the impression that, if you let Obama play out his story, he’ll change the world, and you want to go along for the ride. This is the same impression you want to paint in your audience by the end — see my progress? Better give me money so you can come along for the ride, with me.

“How long did you do these pitches for?” My friend asks.

“For too long. We won at a bunch of competitions. But I realized something. When I was doing these pitches, I was telling myself that it’s worth the time I was putting in because we were winning money, and getting valuable connections through the judges we’ve met.”

“That’s awesome.”

“But it wasn’t. If I had to brutally honest with myself … those were not the real reasons why I was pitching. Because we didn’t really need the money, nor the connections. We already had funding from the DoD that paid for what we needed to do. We were already connected with the hospitals that we needed to work with.

If I had to brutally honest with myself … I was doing these pitches because … it made me feel significant.

It made me feel significant when I could answer all the judges’ questions.

It made me feel significant when the people rushed up to talk to me after I pitched.

It made me feel significant when I won over the competition.”

“Well. At least you got to be on CNN.” My friend says.

“But I was not doing the real work, to get to where I really wanted to go. I was wasting time at those competitions. Time that I could be spending working with my team.

When I eventually realized all of this, I stopped pitching. I went back to work, on making real progress toward what I envisioned.”