Teams will be invited to the pitch finals based on written proposals. Some ideas to keep in mind as you prepare your pitch.
- Prepare: Check out this Techstars video short course. It will help you organize your work and avoid the most common pitching pitfalls.
- Practice: You will be required to practice pitching to coaches at Advanced Enterprise Agility. You should also consider pitching to your alumni mentor. And you should practice many times on your own to make the pitch “your own.”
- Appearance matters: Judges have often commented that they are selecting a team as much as picking an idea. After all, even a great idea will flounder if the team is not committed. What you wear, how you speak, the passion you demonstrate, and how you carry yourself all are part of your pitch.
- The pitch is a visual experience: Most teams choose to support their pitches with slides. Remember that slides are a visual medium; only the slides, use text sparingly. Consider when an image combined with your spoken words would be better than words on the screen.
- Prioritize: The exact length of the pitches will depend on the number of finalists. In the past, pitches have been about 6 to 10 minutes long with 5 or 6 minutes for judges’ follow-up questions. You will not have enough time to say everything you would like the judges to hear. Remember that the judges have already read your written proposal. The pitch is a chance to shape their understanding of your project by strategically highlighting important content. Be choosy about the content you present (and don’t talk extra fast to squeeze in extra content).