How to nail it with your pitch “Story is the 👑”

I was preparing investor pitch tools for the participants of the “Youth, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development” workshop of Rutgers University supported by the Hollings Center for International Dialogue for the demo day that we are arranging in February 2021. Given the pandemic, now, you can find all these resources online. There was no need for me to teach again, which already exists online. Instead, I decided to collect these sources for the students. For instance, Y Combinator shared Startup School materials on YouTube, which I already wanted to watch too.

I also did not want to put their sources without watching them. As I watched YC pitch materials, it was a good chance for me to start watching it, which also led me to re-watch Guy Kawasaki, Simon Sinek, Slidebean, and TED talks. Although it was a workday, I spent my whole day watching these videos that I share below and reflecting on my memories. Then I got a bit nostalgic and remembered how I pitched my startup. Here we begin; I ended up writing my first Medium article. I usually write in book chapters or journals on the scientific committees.

Pitching is like a theater performance, yet with a difference; you usually have 2 to 3 minutes on stage. During my undergraduate, I took three free elective courses on theatre. When performing a play, actors and actresses prepare, practice, and when it comes to the stage, they perform. The same occurs for the entrepreneurs; they pivot their startups, analyze costumes, forecast sales, collect feedbacks, develop their MVP, or Prototype and perform the pitch as actors and actresses.

The other difference is that actors and actresses enjoy the applause and the audience, whereas entrepreneurs ask for investment! Regarding performing a pitch, entrepreneurs would need a good stance, eye contact, use of their hands & gestures, be well-dressed, and not use jargon, please. When I participated in Startup Istanbul 2017, our pitching instructor, Bill Kenney mentioned that I still recall, “when you pitch your idea, pitch as you are feeding your child, go easy. You should make your pitch that easy even kids understand!” he said. I experienced this myself when I highlighted the big data usage in the migration field to solve problems of migrants without expressing it with my story.

When I teach public speaking and presentation after explaining these terms, I jump to play games where participants can practice. I find more helpful the experience of pitching and performing the pitch on the stage rather than listening to pitching fundamentals. I am not saying “do not listen to”; I am saying act the pitch and live the atmosphere.

Nowadays, you pitch online which stage becomes your room. My tips on that are to arrange your background, pitch while standing up, have a good camera and good microphone, dress well, show your energy, and don’t let your Internet connection cut you. TED Education has an application that I am willing to share with you “without sponsorship” to work on your public speaking and insert it to the TED. In order to perform public speaking, you can experience it with TED mobile app. Public speaking, acting, and pitching are different topics, of course. However, if you like to perform a pitch, then you should master public speaking.

I was selected in the top 11 startups among 4800 applications by the 2018 Collective Global Accelerator London program run by Collective Foundation in London, UK. We have had wonderful instructors helping our startups accelerate. Our pitching instructor explained the art of pitching, such as a Hollywood movie. She said that the producers and writers work on the characters in Hollywood movies, making us, the audience connect to the characters. Afterwards, characters start to face challenges; as we connected to the characters, we fall in love with their stories, and we would love our characters to succeed. As a result, after facing so many challenges, the leading roles plan, execute and save the world. So should be your startups.

You should explain the character in the story: you, as an entrepreneur and your startup, show the challenge as the problem you aim to solve. Show the potential, your MVP, users, team members as in the movies. If you would like to nail with your pitch: Story is the 👑. What one all need to do is Learn, Watch, Read, Know and Practice! Do not forget to speak from your heart. Do not memorize; you know your business the best, organize your speech, and don’t dig into too many details.