[mastef]

This is a really cool showcase and kudos for being so open! I'm currently writing up an article on about 18+ (simple) points of what founders should be looking at before pitching.

But many times it just boils down to the same and only point - and that's the beginning. Just directly start with the problem, and then naturally move on to the solution. Like 50% of startups we watched at pitch events just failed at that - and the crowd was left wondering what they're really doing.

It's like the most important thing. Drop everything else, just throw the problem out there - to make people think about it - and then how you solve it.

But this, this was a step harder - no slides to back you up, and an investor in another data tool grilling you on the spot and not letting you off the hook to validate his own investment - that was a tough cookie. Usually you can just leave a comment or two about competitors and move on, but here you had to stay and explain details. So it's not a black and white fail for sure.

( Another point that helped us internally was to pitch in front of the team first. Because there the fails will become evident much faster, and it's a crowd you don't care too much about failing in front. Pitching in front of your team = unit tests before the event )

[dorkitude]

Great points here. Wish I had thought to pitch the rest of the team first.

For your article, you may be interested in a piece I wrote about Demo Day pitching specifically:

https://keen.io/blog/41079734225/how-to-write-your-demo-day-...