Blog #1

Grae Prickett

Blog #1

Social Innovation Incubator

Professor Zak

04/03/17

Week 3: Building a “Support Magnet”: Pitching, Positioning, and Presenting

            The article titled, “How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea”, by Kimberly Elsbach really resonates with today’s high tech society. New apps are constantly popping up and all these apps had to be pitched at some point.  The pitch can also be the make it or break it deal. Take SnapChat for example, the founders had pitched the idea to investors at first and completely messed it up. They weren’t prepared for the questions handed to them and didn’t present the information in a way that the investors saw an investment! So they had to take a step back and reevaluate their pitch and idea. The founders then again went to another set of investors and pitched the idea, but came in more prepared and nailed it. Now SnapChat is one of the top apps in today’s market. They are also a ton of apps that have made it through the cracks, just how Elsbach talks about how there are so many bad TV shows. Somehow either ‘catchers’/investors saw more potential then what the inventor was giving out or they just happened to blow the investors minds away but it was all show and no content.

I personally am torn between what I am as a presenter. Am I a showrunner or an artist? I think sometimes I’m both and it really depends upon the situation.  I recently pitched an idea to Emirates Airlines and sold it by being a showrunner. It turns out that my idea is extremely marketable, but at the time I was low on my confidence towards the product. Although, I knew I had to go into that room and blow the catchers away, and I did just that. I was able to show the urgency of the product and how unique it was to the market. These were the two things that really caught the catchers’ eyes. I also implemented some key rules that I have followed for quite sometime that the article, “Top Tips for Social Entrepreneurs: Pitch Perfect” touches upon. My team and I, we PRACTICED like crazy. We knew our confidence had to show. We also had an extremely impactful elevator pitch that the catchers actually brought up to us later on. We had also kept our presentation short and to the point. No time was wasted explaining things just to add fluff. We weren’t thrown off either when we got interrupted for questions. This is where the practice was key: we answered the question but then jumped right back into the presentation.