Pitching A Business in Silicon Valley
For decades talented people have moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in search of their fortune, whether that was to land a job at a notable company or to seek funding for their new venture. It’s no wonder the tech ecosystem in Silicon Valley has evolved to the immense size that it is today: there are numerous co-working spaces, Meetup events, coffee shops catered to entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators, and investors. And of course, there certainly isn’t a shortage of ideas and startups. Pitch competitions happen every week — and the best pitchers know their content well, rehearsing often to different audiences and evolving as feedback is gathered.
Pitching an idea is about showmanship, however, it’s also about traction. You might have a great pitch, but without traction, you’re dead in the water. Alternatively, if you have a bad pitch — yet you have traction — investors pay more attention. They want to remove as much risk as possible before investing, and given that the number one reason that startups fail is the lack of market demand to their product, they want to see traction to get interested. Investors are always looking at the bottom line, and like to stay within a vertical or two so you are not spreading your self too thin.
But where do you start if you have a business idea you'd like to pitch? If you just moved to the Bay Area and don't have a network to start pitching to, I highly encourage you to read my article on Networking in Silicon Valley. But as a great rule of thumb, the first step to take is to become a member of all the Meetup groups you are interested in. Start attending events, and if you are an introvert, you might want to bring your extrovert friend to help break the ice with other entrepreneurs and investors.
I found the group Idea to IPO on Meetup as a popular event hosted at the Google Developers Launchpad. It’s a monthly event you can attend to listen to veteran entrepreneurs speak. We watched Steve Hoffman — aka “Captain Hoff” — tell his story of starting 3 companies and raising venture capital money. His priorities have shifted over the years and he is now focused on spreading entrepreneurial knowledge around the world. He co-founded Founders Space with Naomi Kokubo and recently published a book called Make Elephants Fly, which takes you step-by-step on how to launch a successful startup — highly recommended, by the way.
The session we attended at Founders Space was actually a pitch competition. We felt somewhat intimidated by all the investors and other reputable startups who attended, but nonetheless, we felt very welcomed. It was really like a family atmosphere, they want you to succeed above anything. Arriving early really helped reduce any nervousness or anxiety since we got to know the space and network with people as they arrived.
The pitch competition at Founders Space was a bit different than what I had seen before. It was like an open mic night instead of a pre-registered list of companies. The entrepreneurs who wanted to pitch that day would take a sheet of paper and write down their company name, description of the company, launch date, number of full-time employees, capital raised, and traction. To keep the momentum of pitches continuing, they lined up 5 at a time and gave the paper to the host. Captain Hoff then read the introduction to the qualified panel of judges, who were the investors, then allowed the entrepreneur(s) to give their 1-minute pitch. Judges kept track of their preferred pitches, and when all the 35 entrepreneurs were done pitching, the judges stood up and told the audience their top 3 choices, along with some quick feedback on why they picked them.
The top 7 entrepreneurs were asked to come back on stage and present a 3-minute pitch, this time with media (aka presentation deck). At the end of the 3-minute pitches, the judges again stood up and listed their top candidates. Kokubo kept track of their choices in order to pick the winner with the most votes. All I knew at the point is that we had 6 votes — out of 10 — from the panel of judges.
The winner was then announced. It ended up that three startups had 6 votes, and since the competition only allowed for a Top 3, the results were more than suiting. We all felt like winners since we were ultimately there to support each other and improve our pitch, our business model, and gather any feedback that could help us grow as entrepreneurs.
At the end of the event, everyone quickly gathered to the front of the room to meet the panel of judges, who were also venture capital investors. I spoke to all but one investor. They are all down to earth and gave terrific feedback.
It’s really cool that our team walked away from the event taking home first place in the pitch competition — sure, it was a 3-way tie for first, but nonetheless, we still won. The best part of all, however, aside from the publicity we got from the event, was that we had three investors interested to meet with us and learn more about our distributed manufacturing software.
The irony of it all is that we went to the pitch event to learn from others, and we ended up pitching as we got comfortable watching other entrepreneurs up on stage.
So there you have it, my personal experience winning a pitch competition in Silicon Valley only 4 weeks after I arrived from the East Coast. Attending pitch events is just one small step to building confidence and gaining the courage for public speaking. I highly encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and pitch to audiences you have never pitched to before. Remember that most of the people who you meet at these events are in the same shoes as you, so even if you screw up, it's no harm done — move on and improve for next time.
You can see Founders Space press release about our achievement here.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Derek. I have been an entrepreneur in Tech for the last 10 years. In my blog I share with you what it’s like to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology; the highs and the lows of being an entrepreneur; what it’s like to do business in China; and how to simply be successful at managing work-life balance. If you like what you read, give it a nice round of applause and add me on LinkedIn — I love connecting with my readers.
