I just returned from South by Southwest’s V2Venture conference where I attended the pitch contest, and I left the event thinking — like I do every time I attend a pitch event – how completely subjective pitching is.
It depends 100 percent on who you’re pitching to and their experiences — whether it is judges or investors or even potential users. You can have judges that completely love your idea. Or you can have judges that come into it with a preconceived notion that your market is oversaturated and nothing you are going to say can sway them.
We’ve pitched and had people tell us that the market for educational games is just too overcrowded for another game. (My two cents: There are A LOT of educational games, but there aren’t nearly enough good ones.)
What is left out when people talk about pitching is how much those on the receiving end of the pitch come into it with their own experiences and opinions. You could take a well-polished pitch and pitch to 50 different people, getting 50 different types of feedback. You’ll get people that love it. People that hate it. People who tell you should definitely take X part out and add Y. People who tell you that no matter what X is the most central part of your pitch and that no one cares about Y. People who tell you they completely get what you’re doing. People who tell you that have no idea what you’re doing – although ideally, the vast majority of people should at least get what you’re doing from your pitch.
There is no question that you need to be able to effectively get across what your business does. But my point is if you listen to everyone and try to tweak your pitch to please everyone, you’ll go insane because it’s simply impossible.