Today we’re covering a topic a lot of founders have asked me about recently - advice on how to prepare for pitch competitions.

Whether these competitions are done on stage or recorded, they almost always have a superficially limited amount of time for the pitch. The ones I see most commonly are two to five minutes long, which feels like a crazy short amount of time to deliver all that you need to say about why your company is so important.

Not only have I coached founders who’ve gone on to win pitch competitions, I’ve also been through my own artificially short pitch competition scenarios (where I really didn’t do so hot 😛). I’ve thought deeply about this and I want to share a few big tips to help you knock it out of the park next time.

Key Tips for Success

When you're given a limited amount of time to pitch, one of the first things most founders will think is, “How do I get all this information into the little time I have?”

That usually manifests itself in a faster pace of speaking and jamming in abbreviations in order to get every additional piece of info that could possibly compel a judge to vote for you. That is the exact opposite of what you should do.

Cut back as much as you can. Think about only one to two concepts that you want to land really well, and then focus on delivering that with the most energy and excitement that you can so. You want the judges to feel your conviction, rather than just glancing over a number of features you've listed out. Emphasize the problem, how you’re going to solve it, and why you / your team are the ones to solve it.

In fact, if you're preparing for a pitch with a max of two minutes, I’d urge you to think about what you can get done in just one and a half minutes. If you could only share one concept that the judges would deeply understand, feel an emotion towards or a connection to- what would that be?

Allow the extra 30 seconds to be used for comfortable pauses, emphasis, and connection with the judges. Pick one or two concepts and avoid doing the feature list that everyone tries to do.

Get them hooked with one idea, one story, one delivery of a concept. And let that lead into what most pitch competitions have, which is a short Q&A session.

Tips for the Q&A Portion

It’s during the Q&A session that you’ll get a chance to wow them with your features, your metrics, all the complete, specific details of your company.

Some of the judges and questions you get will be skeptical and present objections to your company. Don’t make the common mistake of getting defensive. Lead with calm confidence (“That’s a great question- I’m glad you asked that!”) and then pivot to showing your expertise and how strong your conviction is. Hone in on the positive and realize that you might not convince everyone, but you’re also not going to win any fans or votes by arguing.

Instead, you can say "Look, we've heard that before and I appreciate the question. Here's what we know. This is what we believe" and then pivot to your positive talking points that you already have prepared.

What makes for a winning pitch?

It's really about getting people to care. You can increase your chances of succeeding at this by telling a specific story with relatable examples. Naming a specific user and describing what they went through allows the audience to put themselves in the seat of the user instead of questioning “Is there really a user? Who is it? Does that person actually have this problem?

When you’re finishing up your pitch, make sure you’re doing it in a calm and collected way that allows the judges and listeners to absorb what you said. Practice and prepare to end with at least 15 seconds left. The worst pitches are when you’re hustling to get every bit of information in all the way to the end and they call time.

Be chased,
Jason