Three Pitches In, and a Great Deal Learned

Reading Time: 10 minutes

I never knew how exhausting giving 3 different versions of a pitch in 4 days would be. What should be cut from the longer version to give a full picture of the company in a shorter version? What do you have to keep in the 90 second elevator pitch? What do you do when you can’t use any handouts, slides, or props in your presentation? It’s like knowing how to swim, but being thrown in the middle of a pool and the edges of the pool are not stationary. Challenging, but doable.

My first foray into the world of pitch contests was the Venture School Alumni Pitch Contest, which was part of the Hawkeye Innovation Expo. I was scheduled to go first of the three pitches in our room, in front of a panel of four judges. Being my first time presenting this idea in front of an audience, the presentation was a little bit rough around the edges. I hit most of the main points that I wanted, but it wasn’t nearly as polished as I wanted it to be. We’re yet to get the judge feedback from that event, so I’m not sure how they thought I did. Needless to say, we didn’t win any prize money. However, it was a great learning experience, and a great – friendly – place to start the pitch tour. The pitches that took home first and second place were both really polished, and the businesses had already generated some revenue and had some customers.

We also had a booth at the Hawkeye Innovation Expo. David did a great job bringing together materials for our table, and we had some examples of our products on the table for people to see what we were about. A few people did some cookie decorating, and people loved the candy checkerboard idea. We were able to get more than 60 names and e-mail addresses of people that were interested in the idea, and we are drawing winners from those names to receive the “Sexy Life Experience” – date night delivered to the homes of the winners. It will be interesting to get some information back from the winners after they use our product.

I had to leave the table at the Hawkeye Innovation Expo about halfway through the time alloted for the showcase in order to travel to Des Moines for the Young Entrepreneur Convention. I had attended this event last year, and it was a lot of fun then. Overall, I thought the event was even better this year overall than last year’s – there were parts that were much better, and other parts of the convention could still use some work.

The speakers this year had much better presentations as compared to the speakers last year. The information was much more relevant to this type of convention, and it didn’t feel like someone was trying to sell you something half the time like they were last year. In fact, the only pitch that I saw where someone was trying to sell something was Brandon Adams’ pitch about his business – a pitch that was meant to be exclusively for VIP registrants, but was in the main hall and going on right before I arrived for my elevator pitch. Did the VIPs pay extra money just to sit through a sales pitch and eat some exclusive muffins on Saturday morning?

Friday night’s keynote speech was given by Joel Comm, who I didn’t realize had followed me on Twitter a while back. His talk resonated with me, as he is someone who has worn many different hats over the years, sometimes wearing more than one at a time during his career. I didn’t realize that he was the guy behind Yahoo Games – just about everyone my age messed around on there in the age of dial-up. I was able to pick up a signed copy of his new book, Self-Employed: 50 Signs That You Might Be An Entrepreneur. I’m going to have the wife read through it at some point, since she’s convinced that I have a “startup addiction.”

I also enjoyed the talk by Shauna Mackenzie on how to say no to new things that aren’t adding anything to your day. I’ve begun implementing this during this year, since 2016 ended up being the year of “yes.” My plate was overflowing going into this year, and I’m proud to say that I haven’t added anything major to my list, and I’ve been able to rid myself of a couple of large projects and committees that would have been a large drain on my time with minimal return. She also discussed adding a filter to essentially bounce the bad ideas before you even have a chance to consider adding them to your list, and working on creating a to-do list from scratch each day, rather than letting things roll over from one day to the next and feeling overwhelmed from just that.

Shauna and I talked later in the afternoon about her experience running a subscription box business. She had mentioned many things that she did that we were already considering, such as outsourcing a lot of the work to third-party vendors. Why should we be putting the boxes together each month if it’s cheaper to have someone else do it? We were considering this once we get to a certain subscription level, where the third-party box assembly and shipping service would pay for itself. She also mentioned talking to social media influencers in our product space, which our team had discussed in passing but had never truly pursued. Now that we have something to present to influencers, it’s something on which we should act, as we begin our pre-order stage. It was a great talk, and she will be a great connection in the future.

Another great presentation was given by Bill Adamowski from the Startup Factory in Ames. He laid out what they look for in companies that apply to accelerator programs like his, and he offered a spreadsheet that companies can use to track the dilution of ownership between rounds of funding. This is something I could use with my startups as we start to raise a bit of capital to get things moving quicker. He has years of experience with different companies, and it was nice to hear his perspective on the financial aspect of startups – a topic I know that I have a lack of knowledge, and if Sexy Life wants to raise money, I need to know what we are going and what we need to have on hand when meeting with investors.

The venue was a much more appropriate size for the convention, and because of the tiered seating, it was much easier to watch the presentations than it was last year. The back half of the seats were placed at tables, so it was easier to take notes and get a bit of work done during lulls in the programming. Parts of the room actually had a mezzanine, where you could get a great view of the action as well. The vendors were on the mezzanine level as well, so you didn’t have to keep awkwardly walking past them as you moved from one part of the convention to another like we did last year.

The one downfall of the building we were in this year is that it was really noisy, mostly because it was a hollow concrete structure. What didn’t help was all of the kids that came to the convention to see the final speaker, Jake Paul, who also participated in the entrepreneurship panel. I guess he’s some kind of Disney celebrity, which would explain all of the loud 10 year olds that trickled in during the afternoon. He came off as someone who needed a bit more life experience, especially when he commented that he didn’t really see the value of a college education. I didn’t bother to stick around for his talk at the end of the convention, and I wasn’t alone. After the finals for the elevator pitch competition, there was a steady exodus from the building.

I’m still not sure how they came up with the seven finalists for the elevator pitch competition. Was it by group? Was it the top 7 of the day? The judging was incredibly opaque, and I am pretty sure that I’m never going to see any feedback from the judges. The guy running the competition acted like once they determined the 7 finalists, they threw out the judging sheets. I’m not even sure of the qualifications of the judges, because they never introduced themselves. I want to withhold judgment of the entire process, but the lack of transparency was incredibly frustrating.

If the top 7 were picked by pitch groups, then the guy from my group deserved to go on – his pitch in the final round was incredibly smooth, well put together, and included some great statistics at the top of the pitch. If it was the top 7 scores, I call shenanigans. Three of the pitches ran out of time, and one of the seven was one of the convention sponsors (who didn’t know how to hold a microphone during his pitch.) The final pitches were heavy into agriculture and technology – possibly because the judges and committee are connected to Iowa State? I’d really love for my conspiracy theories and doubts to be proven wrong, but they can’t unless they open up a bit more about the process.

So, good convention overall, but there are a few areas that really need to be corrected before this convention will grow. The pitch competition issues are number one. Number two is the lack of people there from the local startup community, and almost nobody from eastern Iowa. Katie from TapOnIt was the only other eastern Iowan there, John was there from Peoria, and one person I talked to had seen my post on a Facebook group searching for beta testers for Sexy Life. Otherwise, it seemed like the other adults there mostly consisted of folks who had bought into one of Brandon Adams’ business ideas. Could the lack of attendance from eastern Iowa be due to EntreFest being so close to the Young Entrepreneur Convention? Are they not reaching out to the local community well enough? Or, is it because a good chunk of this year’s convention still felt like it was the Brandon Adams show? The novelty of that was fine the first year, almost wore off this year, and will completely wear off by next year.

Third, and also as important – why is the convention at the Iowa State Fairgrounds? Is Hy-Vee Hall too expensive? It would be way cooler to have it in downtown Des Moines. I pick my hotel in proximity to the event, which is why I’ve stayed at the hotel across the street from the Fairgrounds both years, even though they had a “host hotel” downtown last year. Again, this is where EntreFest shines – they have the event in downtown Iowa City. If they followed the Young Entrepreneur Convention model, they would have EntreFest at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids. (I even chuckled a bit at that scenario when I wrote it.) Grow the convention by engaging local entrepreneurs and move the convention downtown.

On Sunday morning, I got to have a late breakfast with my partner Jason from my radio days in high school. We regaled ourselves in stories from KWDM and talked about what we’d do if they had an alumni day on the station in association with homecoming. Radio was my favorite part of my high school experience – most of the rest of it was relatively unmemorable or irritating, and college and grad school were way more fun than high school ever was. Senior year was my favorite year from high school, mostly because I spent a lot of afternoons goofing around in the KWDM production studio. My Friday evening live show – the Pandemonium – ended up as an all-request show toward the end of the year. I took Jason and some of the other sophomores under my wing during that year, and I feel like I corrupted all of them enough to establish some sort of legacy at the station. Also, I guess most of my sound effects and the promo I cut for the station’s Web site stuck around at least a couple of years after I graduated. The ghost of The Lunchbox lived on…

I got home Sunday afternoon, mowed the yard, and went to bed early. We found out after I published my last entry here that we made it into the InnovateHER competition on Monday afternoon in Iowa City. I had applied for that over a month ago, and had figured we didn’t make it into that competition. They didn’t give us much warning, and the pitch was supposed to be 5 minutes instead of the 7 I had at the Venture School event. I spent the better part of Monday practicing the reduced pitch, and I think I did significantly better at InnovateHER than I did at the Venture School pitch competition. We were again beaten by MarryMyCity – twice in 4 days! We lost out this time because we don’t have the sales traction statistics they do, according to the feedback we received. That’s the one area we’re still working on, but we’ll have better numbers once the pre-orders start rolling in… once I get the Web site ready.

I’ve been able to catch my breath this weekend and start preparing for the EntreFest pitch competition. It’s going to be another 5-minute pitch, but this time, we aren’t allowed to use our pitch deck while we present. This means that I need to have the entire thing memorized, forwards and backwards, since I won’t be able to take cues from the slides. Our competition is also pretty fierce. I am pitching at 9:30 on Thursday morning in the Iowa City Public Library Meeting Room B. I haven’t heard of many of the teams presenting, so I’m hoping that works in our favor.

EntreFest should be great! I’ve already started working on my personal schedule, based on what information exists on their Web site. Here’s where I’ll probably be during the festivities:

Thursday

• 9:00 to 11:00 am – Pitch Competition, Iowa City Public Library

• 11:00 am to noon – Free Government Money, MidWest One Bank 6^th Floor

• Noon to 1:30 pm – Lunch Keynote, Englert Theater

• 1:45 to 2:45 pm – Iowa Craft Beer Talk, The Mill

• 3:00 to 4:00 pm – Innovation and Grit, Englert Theater

• 4:00 to 5:00 pm – Pitch Competition Finals, Sheraton Hotel

Friday

• 8:00 to 9:00 am – Coffee with VCs, Pullman Diner

• 9:00 to 10:00 am – Mastering the Entrepreneurial Game, Englert Theater

• 10:15 to 11:00 am – Dos and Don’ts of Pitching – Englert Theater

• 11:15 am to 12:45 pm – lunch somewhere

• 1:00 to 2:00 pm – Connecting Right People and Right Resources, Sheraton Hotel

• 2:15 to 3:15 pm – Human Marketing and Soul – FilmScene

• 3:30 to 4:30 pm – Closing Keynote, Englert Theater

• 5:00 pm and on into Saturday – Flyover Fashion Fest

Speaking of, I haven’t decided what my schedule will be for Flyover Fashion Fest. There aren’t as many options during Flyover as there are during EntreFest, so that might make my life a bit easier.

David and I are still deciding what to do to promote Sexy Life during EntreFest (and possibly during Flyover Fashion Fest.) Also, hopefully we will know where Startup Weekend Iowa City will happen so that Ian and I can promote that during these events. The contact at HotelVetro fell through, so we are looking now at the MERGE space downtown on the Ped Mall or possibly elsewhere on campus, so we are at least downtown-adjacent for customer discovery interviews. This week, I’m also going to start pulling the committee together so we can get this thing planned and promoted. It’s going to take a fair amount of work, but it will be worth it.

We’re releasing the first addition of the Sexy Life newsletter today, so I need to put the finishing touches on that before it goes out this afternoon. If you’re interested in that, head over to getsexylife.com and enter your e-mail address. You’ll be placed on the list for our monthly newsletter, and you’ll be one of the first to know when pre-orders begin.

Wish me luck at EntreFest. It should be a lot of fun, and hopefully, I’ll make some great connections!