Seed Forum happened last friday in Reykjavik. I wrote about it here. I have participated in Seed Forum since 2009. I have to say that I am not extremely impressed with the pitches, not to take anything away from the companies and the teams behind the companies. I think there were some great team members presenting their ideas but I feel something is missing. Ok, I know exactly what is missing… Passion. I don’t feel the love in the pitches. If you as an entrepreneur do not feel the passion for your idea and your team, how can you expect me as an investor to feel it? Don Dodge has a very good post about how to make your 7 minute pitch work for you. The most important thing you need to do is make yourself memorable, check out this Inc. article on how to get into TechStars. There were people wearing costumes to make themselves memorable. Obviously, it is hard in Seed Forum because you don’t know the audience or the investor and their investment thesis etc so it is hard to customize your presentation, but you can make yourself colorful and memorable and funny that way atleast I know you are  willing to do what it takes to get noticed.

Here are a couple of things you absolutely need to do:

  1. Remember your solution is not my problem – focus on defining the problem and the pain or pleasure make it so excruciatingly painful or delightfully pleasurable that I would want to know how you are going to solve this pain or deliver the pleasure.
  2. Tell me about your customer and how you are going to get in front of them or how you are going to acquire them
  3. Show me instead of tell me, traction, usability, conversion rate etc David McClure’s AAARG Metric works
  4. Tell me about your team and why you think it is the best to solve this problem
  5. Last but not least tell me about your Business Model, something similar to what Alexander refers to in his book.
This is what should be mentored into the teams that pitch during Seed Forum, once you got this stone cold then repeat the presentation 20 to 30 times in front of a mirror. Practice makes perfect, get your mom, your grand ma or your corner store manager to listen to your pitch if they buy what you are selling, I am sure you will hit it out of the park.
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