Life and Tech #33: Getting Pitched on Startups
Robert Scoble
Follow me on my new AI podcast, Unaligned. Tech industry color commentator since 1993. Author/Blogger. Former strategist @Microsoft .
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This morning I spoke to business students at the University of California and one of them asked me, “what was your favorite pitch?”
Of course I remember my winners.
Things like seeing Instagram, Siri or Flipboard early on. I also remembered all the crappy ones. I told the student, “if you pitch something in a crowded market, you put me to sleep, so you better have a few reasons why I should wake up.”
In other words, if you pitch me yet another phone, you better explain why I should care. After all, I’ve already decided on my phone and so have most of my readers. If I’m going to tell my readers about a new phone, it better have something that makes it interesting (like if it has a bunch of new sensors).
Earlier this week I asked you to pitch me your startups: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153733047854655
More than 400 pitches rolled in. Here’s my top ten:
1. Sara Sakowitz - Blue Moon Box: a monthly science kit subscription service for kids. This engages kids through fun science projects they can do on their kitchen tables. Every box contains all the materials you need to complete each experiment.
2. Aik Arutunian - On-Demand Engine: a modular platform for building on-demand Uber-like apps easy and fast, for businesses across the board.
3. Chhai Thach - Go Reception: an office automation management system that helps enterprises manage visitors registration, room booking, event ticketing and contractor management. It's being used at Rackspace Australia.
4. Kirill Zubovsky - Receipt Donkey: Save and track your business receipts with Dropbox.
5. David Burrows - GetLaundri.com: launched in Dallas, TX. App-based pick-up and delivery service for employees, households and hotel guests for dry cleaning, laundry and shoe service. All returned in 24 hours. Also, free pick-up of clothing for donation to one of three participating area charities. It's growing 250% each month.
6. Michal Wendrowski - Rublon: cloud-based security software that helps companies protect their data and control employee logins with two-factor authentication via email, SMS and mobile app (2,000+ deployments worldwide, SaaS).
7. Lane Campbell and Mark Graves - MyIRE.com: a platform that is changing the way medical and scientific research is conducted. Democratizing the process with a soon to be publicly released platform that's currently being used in phase three and phase four clinical trials.
8. Yol Sot - StartupBlink.com: an interactive global startup ecosystem map which has tens of thousands of registered startups and other related entities such as co-working spaces, accelerators, startup organizations, tech reporters and much more.
9. Randy Creighton - StoAmigo: cloud file management and storage that unifies users’ storage devices and makes the files accessible from one UI. From the UI you can access your PC, Mac, online storage, NAS device and Android-powered smartphone or tablet. All with nothing uploaded to the cloud.
10. Nitish Kannan - Circlepluspay.com: allows anyone in 23 countries to accept credit cards, bitcoin and invoice globally. Free app with no hardware. Think square without dongles and it works around the world.
Some lessons about pitches:
1. The best are short. Think about it, did you really need to know much more about Uber than, “way better than taxis?” No.
2. A great pitch hits real pain.
3. To win contests, like this one, you pretty much have to be for everyone. But I did find a new app for parents with autistic kids by doing this (https://www.facebook.com/birdhouseforautism/), so it’s worth trying, no matter how narrow your company is.
4. A great pitch has a URL or a call to action, or, preferably both. “Download Uber athttps://www.uber.com.”
5. A great pitch has some social proof: “used by Starbucks in all of its stores.”
6. It tells us what makes the company different.
7. It uses clear English with a minimum of jargon.
8. In a few words, it makes us CARE about the product or company.
9. It uses as few words as possible. If hyperbole is used, you can reduce the number of words. “Uber is better than taxis” is better than “Uber is the leading service that’s better than taxis.”
10. Startups done by kids win. Renata Kotscho Velloso ·https://www.healthymission.us is a startup created by my 11 year-old daughter that uses Instagram to help kids enjoy eating right.
Here are some other things I’ve done or collected over the past week:
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I visited a new kind of startup, which doesn’t even have a good market yet (they make games for VR headsets) to see how they might pitch me.
That pitch, by the founders of Temple Gate Games is here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153738588954655/ (I filmed it live, so my readers could ask questions as they talked about their company).
You’ll learn a lot about the VR industry and also see their frustrations as they try to explain a new UI that people don’t have context for yet.
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First Round Capital released its report on startups: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153740564459655 Interesting read about results from a study of 500 entrepreneurs.
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VTech got hacked and its customer data was shared on the Internet. In this case, it was data that belonged to children. Look at this analysis of how the hack went down, and you’ll see a bunch of really basic mistakes. Like not upgrading servers. This stuff makes me livid because if you use a cloud computing company that invests ANYTHING into security this wouldn’t happen. First rule of security is to do the basics: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153735461409655
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Apple open-sourced its Swift programming language: https://github.com/blog/2089-apple-open-sources-swift-on-github
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Symmetry Labs makes lights for stages behind musical performers (among other places you need digital art). I visit them and get a look at these very cool cubes: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153737003354655/
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I got a video of a fun robot that teaches kids to code at the Big Ideas Festival, an innovation conference for educators: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153742609259655/
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Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic (which makes Wordpress) came on the Gillmor Gang to talk to me about the new version of Wordpress and how the publishing industry is evolving: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153732960449655
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Eclipse comes out with a browser-based IDE. Damn is that a controversial topic, evidenced by the comments here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153737260454655
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Ello changed things around, continues being for “artsy fartsy” types:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153738284494655
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New Django ships: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153739027534655
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Why Metabase picked Clojure: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153740489104655
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Amazon showed off new drones: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153734819024655
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Facebook is now adding live video for non celebrities: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153742071064655 (I’ve been using this feature for a while, but until now it was only for a small group of people).
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As a Rackspace futurist, I keep my finger on the pulse of Silicon Valley and global trends, to offer insights into what’s coming next in tech and why it’s important to you.
Since 2009, I’ve traveled near and far, meeting with startups, innovative companies and visionaries, as well as evangelizing the Rackspace managed cloud story.
I read all my email at [email protected] and anything done in response to this newsletter goes to the top of my inbox. I’m also at +1-425-205-1921 or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble
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And props to Hugh Macleod and team for creating art each week. Find more at https://www.gapingvoid.com/
Quarterbacks Coach at Kansas City Chiefs
8 年Great info! Thanks for sharing!
Logistics & Inventory controller at Olayan kimberly Clark
8 年It's very useful session..I had seen most of the pitches you used and I am going to sign up with the most. GREAT ??