March 09, 2010
Six Steps to a Great Startup Pitch Presentation
Last night I had the pleasure of attending Mobile Mondays Boston (#momobo) and listening to nine mobile startups present five-minute pitches of their companies. You can see a nice overview over on New Digital Cafe, but the true stand out was a presentation by Textaurant‘s @joshsambob.
Textaurant is an elegant yet simple service that replaces pages at upscale casual dining establishments, using your existing mobile phone. Instead of being trapped in a crowded foyer of The Cheesecake Factory, which I was Sunday evening, you give the host your mobile number and they text you when your table is ready. If you opt-in, they also can send you messages from nearby establishments (ala Foursquare). This makes life better for the patron and the restaurant by creating a better dining experience.
Hopefully I’ve summarized as well as was presented. Everyone that I spoke to after the event agreed that this was the epitome of a good presentation. So while it is fresh in my mind, let me lay out what Josh Bob did so right.
1. Audio/ Visuals
Every good presentation I’ve seen lately has used strong visuals and little text. The Textaurant presentation had a clean, concise message, but that was immediately referenceable through the use of strong visuals (like the line out side of a the restaurant.) The guy from i-migo nailed this last night as he ran away from his mobile phone and made the alarm go off to demonstrate his product’s capabilities.
2. Humor
The presentation isn’t just the slides, it is the personality of your presenter so choose wisely. A bit of humor goes a long way. Josh got a number of laughs in what was clearly a carefully planned and crafted message.
3. Problem | Solution
Clearly define the problem you are solving up front. Depending upon your value proposition, you can do this as simply as Textaurant did — by showing a picture of a line. They then backed that up to show why the current solution (costly pagers that are easily lost and keep people trapped, bored, and crowded together) isn’t working.
4. Value Proposition
Next you need to succinctly articulate your value proposition — for all the audiences you serve. Textaurant outlined the benefits to patrons: more flexibility, less time wasted and establishments: less crowd, happier customers, less expensive than pagers.
5. Add ons
If you offer multiple product offerings to multiple audiences, you need to streamline this for your initial pitch presentation, otherwise the audience doesn’t really know who you are. They can only take in so much at a time. Textaurant quickly outlined their opt-in service to receive offers from nearby or related establishments (come shop at Borders and get 10% off while you wait). This supported their value proposition and didn’t distract. It was kept simple and in the right flow of the presentation.
6. Define your space
Another thing Textaurant did beautifully was define the market they addressed in a way everyone can understand. They address the upscale casual dining restaurant like P.F. Changs, Cheesecake Factory, etc. They pointed out that OpenTable.com owns the fine dining segment and the fast food/casual dining (Denny’s) wasn’t their play. Again, great visuals help out here.
If you do it right, you should be able to explain your business in a compelling way in LESS than five minutes. I know everyone I spoke to last night was ready to try to invest in, work for, or try out Textaurant. Now that’s a win.
