The Startup Pitch Reflection
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. ~Confucius
As 2016 comes to a close, I look back and see how far we’ve come as a company, or at least at all the things we’ve done. We’ve made plenty of new connections, worked on interesting projects, participated in important programs and got some surprising visibility. The visibility mainly came from startup pitch events, which also created a lot of noise (sending out pitch decks, meetings with investors, social media posts and interviews)… Was it all useful? Time will tell. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on the competitions I had a chance to participate in, how the pitches went and how it relates to the bottom line… if at all!
Competitions are stressful and fun, especially when you are competing for your startup’s funding and visibility. Not only are you putting yourself out there trying to explain what you do to the world, you are trying to show that you’re better than someone else and therefore deserve the attention. It’s not an easy thing, at least for me, so in the spirit of reflection let me share some of the experiences I had so far:
In 2016, I had a chance to participate in some of these pitch competitions and the experience has been interesting — different audiences provided different opportunities to highlight our goals and achievements to date. Not everything went exactly as expected, so I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far… because I wish I had a chance to know before I got into this myself.
2016 Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge Grand Prize Award…
In the summer, I learned about the Pistoia Alliance and it’s goal to promote pre-competitive collaboration between pharma companies. It was interesting to learn that these companies actually collaborate and share challenges. With just several days to put together a 5-page business plan, we barely made the deadline and entered the competition — thankfully big data analysis and integration was the topic! As it always goes, the news that you’ve passed the pre-selection process is a surprise.
The pitch event came as the conference was drawing to a close — the topics were broad, but right before we pitched, a panel was discussing bioinformatics, machine learning and neural networks. I knew the audience was ready — attendees asked questions and discussed practical issues.
5 minutes before the presentation are always spent on philosophic issues: is my pitch going to benefit the world? Am I only as good as my pitch? Should just leave before I embarrass myself?
To my surprise, not everyone’s pitch was focused on bioinformatics — some companies dealt with image analysis, others with scientific publication topics, but a few also presented similar ideas to what Pine Biotech does. Nervous presenting to such an experienced audience, I was thinking how I can improve my slides just as I was listening to other pitches. But that’s not an option, time to get up there and give it all you’ve got!
Thankfully, the pitch was soon over, I even managed to answer all of the questions from the audience!
A few glasses of wine at the reception helped. As the announcement was made, a huge check was presented and pictures taken. I was leaving Boston with $20,000 more than what I had before I arrived. But what was the bottom line? Was there anything else I gained from this experience?
Benefits:
- Visibility: getting the name out there to the right audience is important. Especially when you are a new company that is competing and has to explain every time what it does.
- Validation: seeing people in your industry that review your pitch is a validation that you are working in the right direction
- Constructive criticism: Together with positive feedback, we got some interesting criticism from the judges — work on the business model…
- Contacts
- Money and perks — $20,000 to burn and access to Thomson Reuters data package.
Other things to consider:
- Up to you to make it work. While the event provides a platform to present your idea, you still need to figure out what to do after they hear it.
- Pre-competitive means no one is ready to pay for the solution, have an idea of pre-competitive projects you can start getting involved in and learn how the organization handles them
- Still does not validate that you are investable — this is a prize for your style, presentation slides and ideas, not necessarily leading to cash inflows.
- Be bold, try often and sometimes you will win!
Read more about this announcement: http://www.pistoiaalliance.org/pine-biotech-medexprim-selected-grand-prize-winners-2016-pistoia-alliance-presidents-startup-challenge/
2016 Propeller Startup Accelerator
Propeller is a “socially-aware” accelerator in New Orleans that helps businesses focus and grow their idea with a bottom double line, meaning they encourage solving social disparities, drive economic growth for under-represented populations and benefitting the society. While bioinformatics and big data is not directly related to improving New Orleans, we got accepted into the 2016 Health cohort of the accelerator.
The meetings were great, showing us both what’s lacking in our company and how we can improve. One of the main values for me was the network of high-level professionals from New Orleans administration, Healthcare executives and the investment community that the Propeller team organized. Our lead mentor, Neil Gibbons was also very helpful from giving his insights into our business model to making personal introductions. As a result, we had a solid deck and were ready to show it to the world.
The crowd was much less what I’m used to — not scientists and not industry that understood the background. It was a general crowd and our pitch was mixed in with other startups and non-profits that had very different focuses and asks. As a result, the pitch deck was “simplified”, I would even say the ask was irrelevant because the audience had no way to act on it.
Benefits:
- visibility with the local network
- local news sites picked up our story (http://siliconbayounews.com/2016/12/14/new-orleans-startup-wins-pitch-competition-boston/)
- simplifying the pitch for people outside our industry
- defining a list of areas to focus on
Other things to consider:
- How to adapt the message to a general crowd without losing your value (unique position)
- How to appeal to investors while not forgetting the social impact
- Staying focused on solving the real problems that will draw partners and investors
Bottom line, it was a great experience and our healthcare-focused group even won the prize for having the highest percentage of wins on the success wall! We also got a chance to meet other entrepreneurs that were going through a lot of the same things we did.
2017 StartupHealth Academy:
I heard about StartupHealth a long time ago and was drawn to their academy program because of the many successful programs and events they held. I am always on the lookout for hubs where multiple types of organizations and entrepreneurs can network and build companies. StartupHealth seems to have figured out a way to do this on scale and one of the ways they have been able to scale is due to their online presence. So companies from all over the world can join.
This was not such an easy process — I first filled out the form on their website to join almost a year ago. Then we did multiple pitches and finally, got an offer to join. But before we committed to it (our board was difficult to convince to give away equity for a “program”), we were invited to pitch to one of the program investors. Well, that did not go so well, being an early stage company, our business model is still not polished and with limited traction, we were not deemed “investor ready”. SO be it, at least we get to see if we pass through StartupHealth due diligence and get into the academy.
To learn more about the academy, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIny0bsZ1jc
CAPITALx by Idea Village… starting in January 2017!
Finally, we met with the great folks at the Idea Village (http://www.ideavillage.org) — they have a program designed to help entrepreneurs in New Orleans pitch to investors and secure funding, called CAPITALx. To join, you have to present the concept to a number of panels, starting from the Idea Village employees to the entrepreneur in residence that will lead the program and finally to a board that reviews all of the applications.
What I noticed was that the pitch we developed at Propeller helped explain the idea to the Idea Village team as well. There was a significant improvement of me pitching the propeller deck rather than trying to explain the science behind the platform which is what mostly turns people off. I did notice that I tend to skip some of the most important parts of our company — how we will make money. I guess that’s what we will be working on at CAPITALx.
I hope to make it through all these programs in 2017 and presenting to everyone who will attend the 2017 New Orleans Entrepreneur Weekend. Looking forward to what 2017 has in store for us, and thanks for being a part of this journey!
To read more about our company, visit http://pine-biotech.com/
