5 Presentation Tips from the Unreasonable Institute West Coast Pitch Fest

The first round of the Unreasonable Institute is quickly ebbing into pitch phase, when the 20+ entrepreneurs who have spent all summer in Boulder, CO put it all on the line to find the resources they need to take their companies to the next level. I spent Monday afternoon listening to their pitches at the West Coast Pitch Festival, hosted by Hub SoMa in San Francisco.

Across all the presentations, there were certain stylistic traits that made a presentation stand out as either good or not so good, and that may have applicability in many investment presentations by social ventures.

1. In a sympathetic audience, sell the social problem more quickly. This was an audience predisposed to care about the social issues these ventures are addressing, yet a number of the presentations spent more than half of their allotted time trying to convince the audience of the importance of the problem. Scope of the problem, context of the problem, and a quick analysis of why what exists now isn't cutting it, yes, but move faster through this and into the model meat of the presentation.

2. Get to the big, bombastic, mouth watering picture faster...The emotion that these entrepreneurs have to be trying to inspire is "holy shit, I want in, now." These social investors have to feel like they'd have to be insane *not* to want to invest. At least that's the goal. Making the picture be that exiting requires convincing people of the problem, yes, but more importantly, it requires making your solution seem so clear, so tangible, so full of opportunity that buying in is a no brainer. There was one presentation that was for a really awesome company, but in which it was only the very last slide for the very last few seconds that they shared their audacious goal of reaching 100,000,000 people in the next five years.

3. ...Then work back to how, with as much proof as you have. An essential part of achieving the excitement above is having a compelling logic for why what you're selling will work. A proof of concept with saleable results is best, but whatever it is, the "how" has to be believable. One of the biggest challenges of anyone pitching for resources in the social investment space is that there are still way more examples of organizations that talk a big game than real executers in the field. Ultimately execution matters more than inspiration. A related problem was that main piece of the execution plan for many of the pitches was "We will partner with X, which will open all the doors we need." Much easier said than done.

4. Contextualize it. Maybe the biggest challenge for me was that, because there was a real diversity of business models and financial needs, it was often hard to contextualize how you were supposed to be evaluating the company in front of you. Knowing whether the presenter was looking for resources for a nonprofit, a $1-3m annual business, or a $10m+ company makes a big difference in terms of how you think about the project as it relates to your individual portfolio as an investor. I think almost everyone would have benefitted from an overview slide that gave the key points in the first 10 seconds.

5. Confidence wins. The fastest way anyone lost my attention was by appearing timid. Nervous jitters are normal and fine, but ultimately the entrepreneurship game is about willing something not currently there into existence. This takes an immense amount of convincing. Convincing investors, team members, existing power structures, and anyone else that you need to move in some way. Confidence matters as much or more to me in the social space than in the web space, because I think we have a higher burden to change the narrative. It's still too easy for people to write our field off as a set of small, charitable endeavors outside of mainstream business.

Photo credit: Nathaniel Whittemore