It’s All About the Customer
2017 Summer Accelerator Pitches Their Customer and More!
On Tuesday, July 11, members of the 2017 Summer Accelerator presented their businesses at, what we call, the Mid-Pitch — essentially a pitch contest, just without the judges (or money). Here, each member of the cohort displays their business at a table (aka tabling) and gives a 3 minute presentation to mentors, friends, and family.
As a Project Coordinator for EforAll, my perspective and objectives for the Mid-Pitch are a little different from the entrepreneurs. Other than the work ahead of time to plan, schedule, and set up the event, the other staff members and I are looking for ways to provide help and understand the progress of each entrepreneur.
The Mid-Pitch is the first time the all the entrepreneurs are forced to use the information they have learned from the expert sessions. As such, we want to see who has really done their homework — from understanding the core problem and validating the solution, to having a workable financial model — and whether they are able to communicate that to others.
Contrary to popular belief, I find tabling to be one of the most powerful aspects of the Mid-Pitch. It allows the entrepreneurs to talk on an individual level about their ideas, receiving personal feedback, validation, and suggestions. The actual pitch is important for the entrepreneurs to understand how difficult it is to engage and express their ideas, and understand where they need to improve for themselves. From my perspective, how their pitch goes give us a basis for how to help them develop their pitch before the final presentations at the end of the program.
Having mentors present makes the whole event work. They are able to see their entrepreneur’s progress, relative to the progress of the class, and understand how they too can help develop their ideas before the final presentations. Mentors also provide entrepreneurs of different mentor groups with new feedback and help “cross-pollinate” ideas — discussing ideas and issues in new ways, which they may not have discussed within their own groups.
All of this makes the Mid-Pitch an essential part of the Accelerator program to prepare the entrepreneurs to “pitch” all aspects of their business in all different kinds of settings. It’s also a great way to bring together the Mentors and celebrate the work everyone’s accomplished so far in the Accelerator. On to the second half of the summer!
— Peter Cakounes, Program Coordinator, EforAll Lowell-Lawrence
