204 days to go: 3x lessons from my first live pitch
A recap of week five as a full-time Founder
Hey there 👋🏾,
So, last week was definitely one to remember.
I took part in my first live-pitch event and, let’s just say it didn’t quite go as planned! As this was a huge learning curve for me (that hopefully, a tonne of you can benefit from), I’ve rejigged the order of the newsletter and started with the 3x lessons I learned from my first 5-minute pitch.
Given my focus last week was to prep for the pitch, the rest of the newsletter is a bit light this week. But, for anyone who wants to skip ahead to the rest, here’s what’s in store:
Lessons 🤔: 3x lessons learned from my first 5-minute live pitch
Win🏅: Advice about Angel investors and getting first cheques
Resources 📚: Pitch deck advice and templates
💡 Lessons learned
Quote of the week
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen — Brene Brown
LESSON 👩🏾🏫: 3x lessons learned from my first 5-minute live pitch
Last Friday, I was invited to Ruka Hair’s first live pitch event — 10x Founders had been shortlisted after submitting a 60s pitch on Instagram or TikTok. Ruka planned to give away £5k, £3k and £2k to the top three Founders of the night.
Fortunately, I’ve pitched before (so this wasn’t my first rodeo) but, as I’m speaking to investors in different parts of the world, I’ve mainly done this via video calls. Making Friday my first in-person session.
With plenty of test runs and calls under my belt, I was pretty confident that I could go into the room and at least do my best. My mantra — passed down by my Grandad — is you cannot be disappointed if you’ve tried your best. Whether I ended up with nothing or the £5k cheque, I would be satisfied knowing I brought my A-game to the occasion.
But sadly… there was no A-game.
If I’m being kind, I can probably give myself a C at best 😅.
But I learned A LOT. Not just about myself, but about the process and expectations for different types of approaches to pitching.
Before I get into all of the lessons, I’ll set the scene.
The task
Each Founder had a 10-minute slot with 4x judges in private. We had 5 minutes to pitch and 5 minutes for questions. The Ruka team also sent us an email with some instructions about what should be included in the deck about 2 days before the event.
The prep
With a deck already made, I focussed on adding slides or making slight amendments to ones that already existed.
I also have a script to accompany the deck and started to make some tweaks but quickly realised that my script was waaayyy too long. I typically have 30-minute calls with investors and at least 10-12 minutes is spent running through the deck.
With my script already double the length it should be (and 2 days to memorise the short version), I started hacking away at what already existed — let’s call this mistake number one.
Hours later, and after timing myself several times, my pitch was 6 1/2 minutes long at best (mistake 2 in the works). But, as I was out of prep time, I decided to work with what I had and headed to the event.
The arrival
There was a schedule with everyone’s speaking slots for the day, and I was somewhere in the middle — a detail I hadn’t thought much of (mistake 3!).
I arrived about 10 minutes before kick-off and waited — snacks in hand — until everyone turned up. Tendai, the co-founder of Ruka, gave a lovely opening speech that really set the scene and before we knew it the first person was being carted into the meeting room to pitch.
Now, the upside of not being first, is you can get the inside scoop before it’s your turn and have time to adapt. As the 6th person up, I got to watch 5 people go in feeling tense and come out relieved. The general feedback was the judges had time for 2-3 questions at the end, and it didn’t always feel like a grilling. Great.
But, the pitches were being timed to 5 minutes. One of the girls on the Ruka team raised her hand with 30 seconds to go to give you a heads-up that your time was coming to an end.
Remember a few paragraphs up when I mentioned getting my pitch down to 6 1/2 minutes at best?
Well, I had now given myself the glorious task of shaving off 90s on the spot.
Joy of joys.
Even with the strict timing, as an optimist, I powered through. Improvising is a skill, and I would have to figure it out. In some ways, it’s comforting to not be an overthinker, but in other ways, it can be an achilles heel. Why?
Because what I hadn’t banked on were the nerves that would build up as I waited in line. What I would soon learn is, the beauty of being first is, you don’t have time to get nervous.
The pitch
My deck was onscreen as I walked in, so after some quick introductions, I flew straight into the pitch.
I had about 14 slides to run through (minus my title and questions page), which gave me roughly 20s per slide. I reckon slides 1-3 were done in a good amount of time and I stayed on script, which was great.
I’m a storyteller and my deck is a reflection of that. This generally means I’m keen to give context/backdrop that people may be unaware of and weave in customer stories. Given I had 5 minutes, there wasn’t enough time for this approach and the moment I hit a slide that required more explaining, I scrambled to pull my thoughts and words together to summarise everything (and parts of my script also disappeared from my memory).
But, I kept going and hit the same snag on a couple of slides. Too much detail, not enough time. At this point several slides had eaten up an extra 10s each, leaving me in a deficit and before I knew it, a hand flew up giving me 30 seconds to go.
I had 3 slides to go — that’s 10s per slide.
As much as I’d have loved for this story to end with me powering through my pitch on time, I definitely ran over. I’m not sure by how much, let’s say it was 20-30s more than I should have.
But that left my brain feeling a bit scrambled, and I knew that I hadn’t delivered in a way that made me feel like I had at least done my best.
The pitch was said and done, I was asked 2-3 questions at the end and scuttled off into the room with the rest of the Founders to snack and recover.
The results
Three incredible Founders were awarded with the prize money that same evening — one was even offered mentorship by the Founders of Ruka, which wasn’t originally on the cards — and it’s fair to say that I wasn’t one of them!
As disappointed as I was with my delivery on the day, I love that Ruka created this opportunity for myself and all of the other Founders to practice being in the hot seat. It just goes to show how different the experience is when you’re face-to-face.
Even though I didn’t win, I learned plenty and here are my top 4x lessons for anyone who’s about to pitch 👇🏾
The lessons
1️⃣ Make sure your deck is right for the occasion
My biggest mistake was repurposing a deck that wasn’t right for a 5-minute pitch.
While there was nothing wrong with reusing some slides, I should have paid more attention to the amount of detail shared and questioned whether that was suitable for the task at hand.
That oversight gave me the most headache of the day.
The biggest question I had forgotten to ask is, how does this pitch differ from the ones I’ve done in the past and how is a 5-minute version different to my personal style?
The more you do this kind of thinking, the better you become at honing a pitch in any setting.
TIP: if you already have a deck before you're invited to a pitch, don't assume that everything you have will work. Do your best to rearrange or design slides in a way that suits the time and information you've been asked for.2️⃣ Deliver in the time expected of you
Five minutes is not a very long time, and I didn’t make it count.
Time spent over-explaining clouded or muddied messages that were super impactful. When a fund, investor or grant gives you a set amount of time to deliver, you really have to think about the story being told and how you can achieve the most impact in the least amount of time.
Sometimes, this means being brutal about cutting information out. In the best-case scenario, you pique their interest and end up with a bunch of interesting questions at the end of the pitch.
TIP: Now is not the time to ask for forgiveness not permission. If you've been asked to share certain information, data or stick to a time, do it. It's your job to create the best impression you possibly can, and that means sticking to the guidelines. 3️⃣ Consider how waiting around affects you and what to do in that time
I wildly underestimated how much waiting around would drum up my nerves. This was possibly multiplied by the fact that I was waiting with a group of people — but still, something to be considered when entering competitions.
Waiting in line gave me more time to think and also gave my script more time to slip away.
In a bid to make sure my pitch didn’t sound too rehearsed and robotic, I didn’t want to read over my notes too much. But, if I could do it all again, I would have read my notes ten times over while I waited to make sure everything stuck.
TIP: There is no such thing as being 'over' prepared. It’s a game of risk vs reward. The risk of forgetting is far greater than the risk of sounding like you’re reading from a script. And that’s it! Hopefully, this has helped anyone that’s going to pitch soon! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
🔋 Progress recap & highlights
Biggest wins
WIN 1️⃣: Advice about first cheques and what Angels really care about and more ✅
As usual, there were many nuggets of gold dropped on LinkedIn last week. While I’m sharing these as I find them via the 240 Days Substack chat, there are a few from last week that deserved a special place in the newsletter.
First up, Marcus Exall shared some of the realities of Angel investing and that made me realise that what appears to be a no-brainer for passionate Founders isn’t the same for investors on the other side of the table.
It pays to remember that Angel investors have worked hard for the money that they are trying to invest, and are weighing up the pros and cons to decide which of the many options are best for them. Something for all founders to bear in mind!
Gary Izunwa shed some light on how small cheques can transform fundraising; from two Angels putting in £5k, he gained introductions worth over £300k. As someone who’s raising at the moment, this was quite the reality check.
Even though I hadn’t considered a minimum ticket for my round, would I have turned down a £1k cheque before I read Gary’s post? Probably.
Mainly because I’m thinking about the percentage of the raise that each investor brings, but this made me realise that someone’s network (and belief in my product) is just as valuable as the money they can bring to the table. So, thank you Gary for stopping me and many other Founders from falling into this trap.
Finally, Jeanine Suah shared a great forwardable template that Founders can use when requesting warm intros. With a template like this, you can impress the person who’s helping you with the intro, and have a bit of control over how your brand is presented to new potential investors. It’s a win-win.
Other interesting posts I came across:
32% of fundraising came from Family Offices — here’s a post that sheds some light on what they tend to look out for
Finding 240 Days useful? Share the newsletter with Founders in your community.
Biggest L’s 🤕
LOSS 1 😩: Didn’t get selected for the NYC women’s trip
After several weeks of waiting, I got a response from the Female Founders trade mission to NYC. Unfortunately, it was a no this time.
As much as I’m sad not to go, applying has allowed me to start building a relationship with the team that runs the initiative each year.
Sometimes, it’s not about getting the end result you expected, but the one that you need. It’s very possible that these connections could lead to something just as meaningful, I just have to wait it out and see!
💥 Hack of the week
Nothing new to add this week! Feel free to revisit some of the hacks from my previous newsletters:
What to consider when paying someone to build an investor outreach list
How to find investors details on Crunchbase (without paying a penny)
📚 Resources
If you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter, you deserve a reward. So here’s a list of the best resources I came across last week to help you with your raise.
Pitch deck template support
🧰 Founder’s toolbox
Nothing new for the toolbox this week! I’ll be back next week with more suggestions.
Questions? 🤔
Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below! Until next week,
J x
P.S. Here are some of my other posts:
P.P.S. Did you enjoy this newsletter? Subscribe and please share with a friend who could benefit from reading it!