Two Strikes and You’re Out

This week the BAX team gave our first dry run of our final pitch.

We went into it feeling pretty good—unfortunately, we ran into technical difficulties during the pitch. While our practice run beforehand was fine and we made sure to check that the sound was working for the demo, the presentation clicker we were using was buggy and at times we had two people trying to advance the slides simultaneously, which made for some awkward moments. Our allotted time was eight minutes. We clocked in at nine.

Besides the aforementioned however, I think our pitch was fairly well-received. People seemed to like and respond well to our demo video— except for the fact that our characters had no faces, which apparently creeped some people out. Perhaps the most gratifying comment of all was:

“For the first time, I think I finally understand what you guys are doing and what your product is.”

Moving forward and preparing for the final pitch on demo day, I think we need to practice running through our presentation a few times word for word. All of us have a tendency to present quite well and concisely when practicing, but ramble as soon as we get up in front of an audience. I think a key factor affecting this is transitions, otherwise known as “hand-offs.” As each team member finishes our portions of the presentation, it’s important that we have properly set the stage for the next speaker so they don’t have to backtrack at all in order to start in on the content which is already up on the screen.

I know for a fact that I personally have a habit of over-explaining things as soon as it’s my turn to present, which is something I will have to actively work to minimize in the next five days— because that’s all the time we’ve got. Come Tuesday, we’ll be up in front of a panel of investors, pitching our startup idea and presenting for the very last time. The practice pitch was our first strike, but this is no baseball game, because a second strike means we’re out.