Long is Easy, Short is Hard

At the start of the week I attended the Pitch Presentation Workshop with Bill Joos ‘The Pitch Doctor’ organised by Informatics Ventures. It was fantastic!

Bill Joos was co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures along with Guy Kawasaki and previously held senior positions in Apple and IBM. The aim of the workshop was to improve our ability to pitch to investors and was split into 4 sessions:

1. Top Ten Mistakes in Business Plans
2. Perfecting You “Short Building Elevator” Pitch
3. Perfecting your Pitching
4. The Power of an Advisory Board

Now I wont go into detail on the hole workshop, not least cos it lasted a whole day, but I want to highlight a few of the ‘Ah Ha’ moments from day. Bill had a guarantee of at lest 6 ‘Ah Ha’ moments where the content was immensely important to pitching, of these the biggest ‘Ah Ha’ was -** long is easy, short is hard**.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid

This was the core message of the day with Bill using this quote from Mark Twain to encapsulate it:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

To nail down what you do and why you do it succinctly is a lot of hard work but essential. This ties into yet another ‘Ah Ha’ moment from the day, the how is pretty much irrelevant. The fact you’re using Node.js with a MongoDB backend means little to an investor in the pitch, what the business is doing and the pain it solves is the information relevant to investors.

7 Words or Less

To be brief is difficult but not impossible. Even with the most complex business you should aim to describe it in 7 words or less. Bill gave a short example with the Ig Noble Prize 24-7 lectures, first the speaker has 24 seconds to describe their subject area then they have to do the same in only 7 words – world economics, theoretical chemistry  and quantum physics are all boiled down to 7 words anyone can understand. Can you do that with your business?

It’s only 50% content

When pitching it’s easy to pour yourself into the content after all it is the meat of the pitch but don’t forget the delivery – it’s the essential garnish. Bill said it’s typical to spend 70% of your time focusing on the content when it should really be 50/50. Practice, practice, practice and get your timing nailed, know the order of the slides and give yourself a good transition from one to another. It’s simple advice and it’s advice I’m sure you’ve heard before but never followed. Well, take it from Bill and give more time to your delivery!

The day really was fantastic and I’m grateful Informatics Ventures brought Bill over, I’m sure the benefits of Bills workshops will be evident at the Engage Invest Exploit (EIE12) conference in May. I hope Informatics Ventures can bring Bill back to Scotland next year, if they do I highly recommend going.