Pitching the proposition

A well—delivered presentation can make a company establishing it’s brand and clarifying its purpose for employees, investors, and media.  This is doubly true for startups, where pitches are the essential connection with investors, and their funding is the lifeblood of pre-revenue companies.

CamStent started in 2006 (three of the founding team pitched in the London Eye late that year).  The company formally started operations in 2009 when we got a grant for experimental work, and has been through several formal rounds since, raising over one million pounds.  We are presently on our third round of pitches, just over half-subscribed.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a 10-minute pitch to prospective investors at Truestone Asset Management in London.  It went well, we were a solid second place in the voting about which companies might be successful and which might return a profit.  The presentation was filmed, and the video is available below.

This was never the sort of thing that I used to be good at.  But the time at Cambridge gave me tools to be able to present my ideas, and coaches and critique sessions have sharpened the message.  I watch how others do it; I learn from videos and from watching other entrepreneurs, and spend a lot of time revising and practicing my slide deck.

With practice, I no longer get nervous about giving a talk, and have learned how to pace through a pitch, changing gears and maintaining a flow.  It’s an essential skill, and one that I am continually trying to improve.