Pitch

Pitch

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A pitch is a summary of your story/business idea in a single sentence (max. In one paragraph) – also called a high-concept. It is like an advertising slogan, in a way, as the term “pitch” originates from the agency or advertising agency industry. Today, startups use a pitch to try to convince investors of their business idea in the shortest possible time.  

A distinction is made between the elevator pitch, the startup pitch and speed pitching sessions.

The supreme discipline is the elevator pitch (“elevator presentation”) and the shortest presentation type of pitch. The name Elevator Pitch comes from the fact that in the past, young entrepreneurs often only had the opportunity to convince successful business people of their ideas in short elevator pitches. Even today, one usually only has a few seconds to grab the interest of a potential investor. Therefore, in this type of presentation, no additional documents or presentations (Keynote, PowerPoint, etc.) are used. This is because they could be more of a distraction than cause any additional interest from potential investors.

In a startup pitch, which is not quite as limited in time as the elevator pitch, presentations often serve as aids – the so-called pitch deck. Even if more time is available for the presentation, it still makes sense to keep it short rather than long. The presentation should therefore be limited to 10-13 slides and not be overloaded with too much text. Less is often more, and pictures often say more than a thousand words. This is because many investors listen to dozens of presentations a day and have to concentrate on each individual pitch. As a result, attention spans are usually exhausted after just a few minutes.

Speed pitching session events are modeled on the principle of speed dating. At these events, founding teams have the opportunity to convince a potential investor of their startup idea within a short time (approx. 3 – 5 min.). Then they change the interlocutor, the investor, and the presentation starts all over again. With this type of pitching, startups have the advantage of being able to present their business idea to several potential investors at once.