Pitch competitions are a great way for students and entrepreneurs to raise equity-free money as they build new startups and businesses. I actively encourage students to apply to as many pitch competitions as they find around the United States and Canada. A handful of my students have made it into competitions over the years, and I’ve gone with some of them to see how different competitions operate at the collegiate level, and to contrast them with some of the competitions that I’ve attended locally and across the region.
In nearly a decade of watching people participate in pitch competitions (and participating in a handful myself), I’ve compiled a list of tips that I use to coach students and mentees when they are preparing to present their business ideas in front of judging panels. Every judging panel is different, and every pitch competition is going to have different characteristics. Most of these tips should apply to most situations, but there are always going to be exceptions.
Tips on Judges
When students ask about judging panels, I always tell them that every judging panel is going to be different. In addition, every judge on the panel will have individual biases – some of them may not like the industry in which you are building a business, while others could be superfans. Humans are imperfect, and that’s why panels have more than one member. More than likely, the judges will not be experts in your field, so making the language of your presentation simple to understand is one of the easiest ways to get the panel on your side. You want to avoid using technical terms, jargon, or acronyms if you don’t need them. If you do have to use them, make sure you define those acronyms or jargon early on to avoid confusion.
You won’t always have the answer to every question, even with the best preparation. If you don’t have an exact answer to a question, don’t just make up nonsense. You will be asked questions for which you don’t have an answer on occasion, and in these situations, honesty is key. You can either follow up with the judge after the presentation if allowed, or mention that you don’t have an answer but you or your team will look into it. The judging panel will appreciate your candor, so long as this only happens once or twice during your presentation. If you do not know the answer to any question they ask, you’re not going to do well.
If you are given names and titles of the judging panel, it’s perfectly acceptable to do a bit of sleuthing on LinkedIn and Google. I appreciate when competitions announce the judges in advance, so you can do a bit of digging and slightly modify your message to resonate better with the panel. You can also avoid potentially touchy subjects if you know the background of each judge – if a certain judge doesn’t like a certain industry, you can find ways of maneuvering around discussion of that industry. The larger the digital footprint of each judge, the better prepared you can be while you are on stage.
In addition, if you have the contact information of each member of the judging panel, it never hurts to follow up with them after your presentation and thank them again for their time. You never know where a friendly follow-up could turn into a potential business partnership in the future, especially if you are participating in a competition in your local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Growing your professional network is a task that never ends. Make it one of your weekly tasks to connect with a certain number of new professionals in your community and beyond each week, each month, and each year. Businesses are built primarily on who you know.
Tips on Slide Decks
Depending on the competition, you will usually get to have some sort of slide deck or other props to help the judges understand what you are pitching. These visuals are meant to supplement what you are discussing and should not take focus away from you as the presenter. I’ve seen so many students use their slides as a de facto script, where they read from the slides rather than engaging the judges with their story. Slide decks are not meant to be a crutch or a script – they are meant to highlight the best things about your presentation.
When you are designing your slide deck, make sure you had good contrast between your font color and the background color of the slide. Nobody wants to read blue text on a green background, and it will just irritate the judges and the audience. Dark background with light font works incredibly well, as does a light background with a dark font. In addition, keep your fonts 40-point or larger. 40-point font does two things: it keeps you from adding too much text to a slide, and it makes your slides legible to people sitting in the back of the room and to judges who may have poor eyesight. Limit the number of points on a slide to between 3 and 5 – if you have more to discuss, just create a new slide.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, so use them on your slides instead of actual words. If you have complex graphics like flowcharts or confusagrams, printed copies distributed to the judges at the end of the presentation will allow the judges to get the information they need while preventing them from reading your slide during the pitch. Also, keeping the number of words on each slide to a minimum will prevent the judges from reading your slides while you are presenting – you want full attention on you and the story you are telling rather than on your visuals. Even with complex graphics, try to move through slides no slower than 30 seconds per slide. In a pitch limited to five minutes, this gives you the ability to get through ten slides – perfectly aligned with Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Slides!
Even though Kawasaki says that you’ll only ever need ten slides, you can add as much extra information as you’ll need in your “back slides” – the portion of the slide deck after your conclusion slide. If there are complex figures, financial information, or other more tedious topics that you think the judges might ask about during the question-and-answer period, you should include them in your back slides. In some competitions, I strongly suggest to my students to place their Business Model Canvas somewhere in the back slides, especially when they are first starting out in an academic setting. Remember to keep the information in the back slides updated just as you would update your main presentation – those financial projections should still be based in the future, not three years ago.
Tips on Speech
Are you participating in a pitch competition where you present for five minutes? Try to craft a presentation that takes no more than 4 minutes. In a controlled practice environment, your four-minute pitch will only take four minutes. However, when you are in a completely uncontrolled competition environment, time will distort heavily, and distractions are numerous. That four minutes can easily turn into nearly five. The worst-case scenario is running out of time before you reach the conclusion you’ve worked so hard to create. In some competitions (especially the ones I run), we add any unused time to the question-and-answer section – you can ask competition organizers if this is the case at whatever competition you are participating.
Eye contact is critical and is one of the reasons you shouldn’t just read off of your slides during your pitch. I suggest that you give your eye contact to the judging panel first and the audience second. You are pitching to the panel first and foremost, so you want to be presenting to them as if there were nobody else in the room. For many people nervous about speaking in front of large crowds, the thought of only concentrating on the 3-5 members of the judging panel rather than the entire room calms those fears. If you are nervous about public speaking, there is a technique I teach my students called the Power Pose. While the social scientists are still debating the full merits of the Power Pose, many of my students have told me that it works to ease their nervousness before going on stage. Mediation prior to pitching can also have a calming effect. Use whatever healthy system works for you to calm your nerves.
No matter the situation, try to let your personality shine through as you present. Perhaps your slide deck design complements your personality. Potentially, you could work in a joke as part of the hook at the beginning of your pitch. I’ve found that pitch competition contestants tend to do better if they show their personality while also being personable during the pitch, and especially during the question-and-answer period directly after the presentation. Presenters who are stiff as a board don’t end up engaging the judges or the audience and do poorly in the final results. You don’t have to be a comedian in front of the judging panel, but they do want your true self on display while you pitch.
Tips for Before and After the Competition
Outside of the few minutes where you are the center of attention, there are things you can do both before the competition and after things wrap up that can increase your chances of success. First and foremost, get enough sleep! Entrepreneurship is a long grind, and wearing yourself down to a nub isn’t going to benefit you in your career. Make sure you get 8-9 hours of sleep the night before you present. If you’re scheduled to present first thing in the morning, you may have to skip some of the festivities the night before in order to be fresh for the judges at your assigned time.
In addition, lay out your professional attire the night before as well. Hang everything up that needs to be hung up, especially if you just flew in that day. This gives you a chance to inspect everything before the local department stores are all closed. If you need to iron anything, the night before is also the time to get this done so that you’re not trying to do that in a panic the next morning. There’s nothing worse than trying to get everything put together an hour before you have to go on stage or in front of a judging panel.
As much as I like to have fun and enjoy beverages with others at competitions, I strongly suggest abstaining from alcohol the night before the competition. You remove the chance of a hangover the following morning from the equation, and you get a better night’s sleep if your liver isn’t processing beer or wine all night. Sacrifices now will lead to a better future, especially if you make it into the final round!
If you make it into the final round – congratulations! However, if you don’t make it, don’t feel bad. Learn from the experience you had and make improvements for the next competition you enter. Most pitch competitions required an application round, and many of the people who filled out applications did not make it to the pitch round in which you participated. Have that beverage now and celebrate the small wins just as much as you would celebrate the big wins.
Participating in pitch competitions can be stressful. It takes a lot of time to prepare your pitch and slide deck along with practicing and modifying your presentation. There will also be exceptions to the tips listed above, as every competition is different. However, some combination of the above tips will work in every situation – just be mindful of your current scenario and put your best foot forward. Even if you don’t win any money or prizes, the experience you gain by pitching your business in front of a critical audience can’t be replicated elsewhere.