9 TIPS ON HOW TO PITCH A PROJECT The Collectors Bridge case study

CAPSI/2015

João Diogo Ramos1

1) Collectors Bridge, Portugal

jramos@collectorsbridge.com

Abstract

If you are an entrepreneur or an innovator and you have your work appraised by others, even more if you are in the field of Information Technologies, this article should be of interest and bring you a boost of motivation to your work and/or passion.

This article describes in detail the experience of the author on the preparation and successful pitching of a project called Collectors Bridge (www.collectorsbridge.com, Coimbra, PORTUGAL) that won the Best Business Plan Award on a National entrepreneurship competition named Arrisca-C (www.arrisca-c.pt, 2013 edition).

It starts by introducing the project and then describes the pitch performed, analysing the main decisions and their motivation. From there the author tries to summarize the main success factors an entrepreneur should be concerned about when on similar situations. In the end, based on the experience described, some of the intrinsic characteristics that project promoters should cultivate to enhance their success chances are highlighted.

In haste, if you have a great idea and you need to pitch it to take it forward, reading this paper should not do you any harm.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, pitching, competition, collect and communication

1. Personal and Organizational Context I have been full-time involved in start-ups since at least 2005. I have started my career in a start-

up. I have been an entrepreneur (whatever that really is… I think of it as someone who is

resilient and drives projects forward in creative ways!) since I can remember. My first job after

graduating in Informatics Engineering from Coimbra’s University in 2001 was in a very

innovative project at the time called GlobalShop [GS 2001]. GlobalShop was an MBA project

that evolved into a Group of companies under the holding name of Global S, and it was funded

by the industrial Portuguese Group Salvador Caetano [SC] together with Sonaecom and GE

Capital. At GlobalShop I was involved in the development of some virtual stores (where people

could go and buy the brand’s products) and in my thesis that consisted on the development of a

cross selling module. Such module was responsible for suggesting other products to buy based

on other shopping basket’s contents. Before Globalshop I had already been involved in several

different “ventures”. At the age of 20 I had already launched a computer store in our village

with two friends – one of them still continues that initiative. On top of that, being born in a

small place, on several occasions during my adolescence I had to do additional work to do

simple activities such as practicing Karate or Table Tennis – both of which I created from

scratch: a karate dojo to have classes and a “semi-professional” table tennis team to compete.

After GlobalShop I joined Critical Software [CSW]. Critical is a company famous for having as

its first customer the US Space Agency: NASA. Critical did a huge investment in quality as a

differentiator from the very beginning (it is one of the few CMMI level 5 companies in Europe)

and I consider it to be one of the best engineering schools I could have found. At Critical I

performed development, consulting, project/product management and business development.

In 2005 I had a first meeting that would lead in 2008 to the creation of a spin-off called Critical

Health (currently renamed to Retmarker, [CHT]) focused in Healthcare. Retmarker is mainly

supported on a technology for Ophthalmology with the same name that the company develops

and commercializes in the global market and that allows to reduce costs while addressing

blindness prevention. At Retmarker I started as Business Unit Manager and in 2012 assumed the

role of CEO of the company. Retmarker has been an amazing learning experience where I have

confirmed that having ideas and transforming them into full products are two completely

different things. At a personal level, it has been a huge career opportunity and allowed me to

accomplish from scratch several other things: I became the principal inventor in a US patent;

co-author in several publications and I was also the coordinator of the initial certification of our

Quality Management System and Retmarker’s CE marking as medical device.

But on top of all my activities, in 2013 I had another idea… I thought it was just another idea,

but after a few days, awkward enough, I could not kill it! The more I thought of it, the more it

made sense. The more I talked about it with friends, the more it got improved and the better the

feedback I was getting. Eventually, I had one conversation with a senior colleague that had just

concluded his MBA and the conversation ended with him asking “what do I need to do to be

part of this project?”. It was the moment I decided to start writing a business plan for what

would become Collectors Bridge [C’B]!

2. Collectors Bridge origin (aka the Problem) A few months before I had just gone through another project… This time it was the restoration

of an 80’s video-arcade machine. Sharing it with my friends through social networks, the impact

and feedback was quite fascinating and I was impressed with the passion generated by a few

hours of my free time. It was something that I had done several times before in my life - e.g. I

also restored a 1957 Volkswagen Beetle.

On the other hand, as I learned to program a computer at young age (in the 80s) by spending

hours and hours in front of a TV set using a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, I had decided to start a new

collection as several years before in an interview I had claimed to be from the “Spectrum

Generation”. What I did not know was that this new collection of Sinclair and Timex clones

(mostly made in Portugal!) would be the most important one in my life until now. Sharing this

passion for the Spectrum computers online and in conversations with several others friends, I

realized that I was really not alone. Having to spend hours and hours studying the tiny details to

be able to track and buy the computers I wanted and spent even more hours negotiating and

bidding for them, I thought: “there must be a better way!”. I was eager to learn more and I saw

people available to teach me! I observed people driven by emotion, originated in a glimpse of a

childhood object, to come forward and engage in passionate conversations.

Discussing it with other colleagues I realized there was a business opportunity. I identified the

competences I needed to have on the team, invited the best individuals I knew and welcomed

them on-board. We noticed we had access to important passionate collectors in our network. We

were also able to set up a compelling value proposition to all the players involved in the

collecting arena with no need to ask for any upfront investment. We started looking for ways to

finance the company and looked at entrepreneurial competitions that would provide awards in

form of money that could be used freely in the development of the company according to our

strategy. We clearly avoided awards that would provide only consultancy, market research or

similar services, as that was not our target. After a lot of consideration, we identified Arrisca-C

[ARRISCA-C 2013] and thought it would be our best (and only) bet: all-in! We applied for the

competition and chose the category that would provide the best award and the one that could be

better justified: “Business Plan competition”. As part of the evaluation process, we were called

to do a pitch were we had 10 minutes to convince the Jury to choose us.

3. Pitching session (aka the Solution) The pitching session was, as expected, an exciting moment. Being emotionally driven as I am,

the minutes before it were very tense, but as soon as I started talking, things were all ok. The

stage and spotlight was mine and it felt pretty good. Bear in mind that this was our plan A, B or

even C. Our capacity to invest on the project depended on being successful on these 10 minutes!

I had prepared myself the best I could. As I had learned at Coimbra’s University several years

before, I spent the night before rehearsing the presentation. It had been years since I had done it

with this intensity and relevance but even the improvise needed to be trained.

In advance to the presentation we prepared several initiatives to surprise and show our

commitment to the Jury: a) we started by updating our LinkedIn profiles to include Collectors

Bridge; b) we registered all internet domains relevant for the project; c) we launched a landing

page announcing the project and gathering e-mails from people interested; d) we did a survey

with collectors to validate our assumptions; e) we had a friend designing our logo; f) we created

a proof-of-concept, intentionally copied from Facebook, as to illustrate a simple to use platform,

to have mock-ups to use in the presentation and to validate a possible technical architecture.

Regarding the presentation, we decided to structure it raising the main questions we thought the

Jury wanted to clarify and then answering them with data. Those questions and their rationale

were: 1) “How we identified the opportunity?” With this question we intended to share our

dream, highlight the passion for the project and to create an excellent first impression; 2) ”Why

is there an opportunity?” With this question we wanted to make sure they agreed there is an

opportunity, so there is a problem, affecting lots of people and there is not a good solution to

address it; 3) “People make companies... Who is the promoting team?” With this question we

wanted to highlight whom we were and do it early in the presentation. We wanted to stress the

asset of having an abnormally mature team like ours in such ambitious project; 4) “What is the

C’B and what have we been doing?” With this question we wanted to show all the work we had

done prior to the pitching session and thus explain how we were validating our assumptions (eg.

by surveys, landing page, etc.), we explained what was the target market and the data supporting

it, we summarized the business model and introduced several financial scenarios showing that

there was break-even even in our most conservative scenario; 5) “Where will the award money

be applied?” With this question we wanted to show the Jury how much this was important to us

(even independently of the money) and what we would do with if they chose us; 6) “Why

choose C’B?” This question was basically a final wrap-up and an opportunity to tease the Jury

about choosing us (more on that later!).

The first thing I needed to accomplish in the presentation was to create a first good impression,

as there is only one chance… I wanted to surprise the Jury, make them remember us! To try to

accomplish this, the first thing I ensured was that we had the entire founding team in the room

to show our full commitment to the project. On top of all, my colleagues were wearing a

Collectors Bridge t-shirt created specifically to this purpose. I was wearing a t-shirt about the

Sinclair computers that I collect. I started the presentation by telling the story of a little boy that

grew up to become an engineer and how during that process was highly affected by a device

called ZX Spectrum that taught him lots of things. Obviously it was a real story and my

personal one as this was indeed in the origins of the project. By using a children’s photo I was

appealing to their human emotions as we were all a children with toys once. I explained that I

had started collecting the computers and than I could not find a good way to share my passion

and learn from others in a proper way. After explaining all of this, I removed my t-shirt and I

had a Collectors Bridge t-shirt like the one my colleagues were wearing and I said “now is the

moment I step out of my collector role and where I shift to my business role”. By doing

something visual, something simple - but that they were not expecting - I caught their attention

for the rest of the presentation. The remainder of the pitch went as expected and although I had

something like 20 slides (which normally is absolutely not recommended for a 10 minutes

presentation!), they were prepared in such a way that I was able to conclude it within time.

After the presentation came the question & answers on which we were able to create a good

interaction with the Jury and clarify their doubts. Bear in mind that this is a project about

passionate subjects and everyone collects or collected something throughout their lives which

makes easier to establish emotional bonds with other humans as it eventually happened.

Another innovative thing we did (based on our experience in similar activities) was to prepare a

one-pager with a kind of appraisal matrix that we filled in with what we believed were the

positive things about our project for each criterion. The rationale was to facilitate the Jury’s

work and naturally to try to persuade them by presenting in advance our arguments. On top of

this all, the first question the Jury did was the one that we had anticipated and that was related to

our commitment to the project. When the question was raised I used the slide I had prepared!

4. Results The result was very positive: we created a good impression, we clarified the doubts and a few

months later in a public ceremony we received the award. Immediately after, we formalized the

inception of the company. The company is alive and growing at a steady pace and our current

focus is on boosting some communities and evolving the platform as needed.

5. Final Thoughts Trying to summarize the rationale for the decisions we took in order to help others, I will now

present the nine main tips that I believe entrepreneurs should focus on when on similar

situations. All of these are things that can be trained and you should focus on them to reach

similar objectives. 1) “Be passionate”: speak with passion, as if you do not believe in it, no one

will!; 2)“Be prepared”: rehearse the presentation in front of a mirror and/or friends until

exhaustion… and then start over again! Improvise needs to be trained; 3)“Be creative and

innovate”: surprise your audience, e.g. something visual as changing a t-shirt in the middle of

the presentation. Be prepared to make an amazing first impression; 4)“Bring data”: identify

your strengths and weakness and elaborate on them. Support your conclusions and hypothesis

and try to show the advantages, e.g. showing that you are still profitable in your worst-case

scenario; 5)“Demonstrate knowledge”: do it in subtle ways, e.g. I studied Museology to

understand the roots of collecting and to be able to discuss it with experts; 6)“Anticipate

Doubts”: if you are able to anticipate the Jury’s concerns you will surprise them – e.g. we had

the luck of achieving that with the question about our commitment to the project. Try to be one

step ahead, always!; 7)“Facilitate other people’s work”: e.g. by looking out the evaluation

criteria and filling it in with what you want to stress as in any self-appraisal; 8)“Reduce

liability”: by saying what you will do with the award you reduce the concern on choosing you.

In our case we had decided to hire people (for the daily operation and to develop the platform)

which seemed a good investment and one easily justifiable; 9)“Tease and provoke others”: you

need to be confident and believe in yourself and in your team. Afterwards you can provoke

others to make them think they should bet on you as we did in our final message showing we

were willing to risk and asking the Jury if they had the courage to do it also.

Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You have to live with uncertainty, with risk, with the

fear of failing… constantly! It is indeed a tough way of living. But when you accomplish

something, even small things, the satisfaction from it compensates it all in my personal opinion.

I believe that anyone can be an entrepreneur and I do not believe that there is a set of specific

things you need to have or demonstrate to become one. What I think is that if you have a certain

set of skills it may become easier to reach certain objectives. Nevertheless, all can be taught and

trained. I believe that to increase your chances of success you should a) “try to excel in terms of

communication and networking”: go out and talk to people that may help you but never make

them lose their time. Find ways to get their attention and seek for their advice. Do not be shy as

the “no” is granted and networking is what drives the World; b) “stay self-confident and

resilient”: it is a tough but satisfying way of living; c) “Be flexible” as you will have to multi-

task and do everything in a start-up; and, most importantly, d) “open your eyes and be eager to

learn” as life is made out of learning and that helps to identify new opportunities.

6. References GS, GlobalShop, web.archive.org/web/20010609091549/http://www.globalshop.pt/, 2001

SC, Salvador Caetano Group, www.gruposalvadorcaetano.pt, Porto, PORTUGAL

CSW, Critical Software, www.criticalsoftware.com, Coimbra, PORTUGAL

CHT, Retmarker / Critical Health, www.retmarker.com, Coimbra, PORTUGAL

C’B, Collectors Bridge, www.collectorsbridge.com, Coimbra, PORTUGAL

ARRISCA-C, www.arrisca-c.pt/ ; web.archive.org/web/20141025033143/http://www.uc.pt/gats /eventos_e_iniciativas/a_decorrer/Arrisca_C_2013, 2013

The author would like to thank all the friends, individuals and organizations that have been supportive of the project. Also send a very warm thank you for my fellow Collectors Bridge’s team members. And, last

but not least, our USERS, the reason we created the platform: thank you!