The story of the worst pitch of my life — Part 1
I’ve kept this history a secret for almost three years. Probably out of shame, but also because it happened in one of the most difficult times of my personal life.
Well, after all this time I finally had the courage to think about what happened and what I could learn from it. So in this two-part post, I will tell the story of how I’ve learned to pitch the bad way!
This story starts in January 2013. To be honest, this was one of the hardest times of my life:
- I was finishing my masters’ degree in Physics Engineering.
- At the same time I was working, to help my parents paying my studies and expenses.
- I just had lost my grandfather and ended a 3-year-old relationship.
So, my life was a mess.
Instead of dealing with all this I chose to get involved in more things to keep my mind occupied. So I registered in a four-month entrepreneurship program lectured in the University of Coimbra. The course started in January the 30th and ended in may the 17th .
This course was like many other around the world:
- Several teams;
- Each team received a technology from University of Coimbra;
- Think about a business model to exploit the technology;
- Start designing a business plan for the final pitch.
The bigger problem with this course was not the quality of the mentors and the contents, but me and the way I faced it. This was my first mistake.
During 2 months me and my teammates designed the Business Model Canvas and talked with some people. At first, this could seem a good approach, yet we focused on selling the technology.
On March 21st, we had our first pitch to get the first feedback from a jury. This was the worst part of the course because we presented our pitch and we had excellent feedback from the jury. They all loved our technology, our business model and our road to market. Looking backward I think none of them understood what we were talking about. They just seemed to agree with us.
Well, this was bullshit.
We didn’t need any ego exercises or boosts! We needed real feedback that our pitch sucked, but no one had the courtesy of telling us that. So we went home with our hearts full of joy and confidence.
The bigger the ego, the harder the fall.
During the next two months, we were confident. We had an awesome review from the jury, so we had everything under control. We though our idea and technology were quite good. I didn’t know how wrong I was…
A few days before the presentation day, May the 17th, we started to review our pitch. To be honest and considering the first feedback, we didn’t change the pitch that much. We were confident that we could get the prize or at least impress the jury.
So we let the presentation day come. The pitch session was in the University of Coimbra, with more than 100 people attending.
You can imagine how big this event was. Students and entrepreneurs from three major universities in Portugal. We had several CEOs (such as Gonçalo Quadros CEO of Critical Software), deans from several universities, my boss at the time (representing a Venture Capital in the jury), several VCs from Portugal, my future bosses from Instituto Pedro Nunes, and 100 more people from around Portuguese Entrepreneurship ecosystem. The big shots basically.
If I’m not mistaken I think there were 10 teams presenting, and we were the 4th or the 5th.
We started presenting our pitch with the recipe everyone uses in these kinds of events (problem, solution, market, business model, …). We had the pitch very well rehearsed, we made it on time.
When we finished we were surprised at first but then we panicked.
Unlike the other groups, we didn’t have that many claps and jury was just dazed looking at us. Those were the longest 30 seconds of my life. 100 people looking at us in complete silence. 30 seconds before one of the jury asked something. If my memory is not playing tricks on me I believe it was someone from Portugal Ventures, the biggest Venture Capital Fund in Portugal. Well, the question was not what I thought it was. The jury just asks me the most difficult question in my whole life:
Sorry, I didn’t understand nothing that you’ve been saying in the last 10 minutes. Could you please try to explain it in a minute? What do you really want to do?
When the jury made this question I just wanted to hide, to disappear, to go away. I froze… I didn’t know what to do or what to think… I tried to explain the whole idea in a few minutes, but was pointless. I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my whole life, and I’ve been in pretty uncomfortable situations, but anything like this.
The pitch was focused on technology. I was speaking technical mambo jumbo, and the jury didn’t understand a thing. At a certain point, they started to ignore us and started to discuss between them our project This was even worse, because the jury seemed to felt sorry for us and how unprepared we were. This was the worst! Feeling sorry?! What the hell!! I preferred 100 times more that they got mad, not feeling sorry!
I must say that my brain tried to erase this memory. I don’t remember very well what happened next. I just remember going home right after this. I didn’t saw any of the other presentations, didn’t stay for the prize delivery ceremony, nothing. I just went home and for three years I kept this story secret and tried to erase it from my memory.
After all these years, I guess I just surpassed the trauma and was able to think rationally about this. So my next post — The story of the worst pitch of my life — Part 2 — will be about the 10 Lessons I’ve Learned about pitching, the hard way.
