Five lessons from pitching at Tech in Asia conference!

With so many different tech conferences these days, chances are that if you are part of a startup with reasonable traction and / or taking things relatively seriously you will get to the point where exhibiting or pitching at an event is a real possibility. With Roomfilla, I recently attended the Tech in Asia Singapore 2015 event and these are some insights from my experience.

I found my startup selected for the Arena battle. Sounds almost gladiator like and it was quite an achievement. 10 startups were chosen to showcase ‘the best that Asia had to offer’. This was quite a tag to live up to and when seeing the stage with all those chairs – one thing came to mind was that it’s probably not polite to repeat!

The last article I shared focused on lessons from exhibiting but now we should dive deep into the pitching element and especially five key lessons that you need to think about if you get to the stage where you will be presenting your startup in front of a room full of people.

The stage at the front of a lot of seats!

Lesson 1: Do PRACTICE

Now, practicing is a given, but if you don’t know where you will be presenting, getting an idea for the equipment then it may all fall down. This event was fortunate to have two options to use the stage for a real run through. You don’t know how important this is for getting things right for the actual event.

Talking in front of an empty room kinda sucks. I found this more difficult than speaking in front of a room full of people which did nothing for my confidence after the initial practice. I did however find out some key things which helped with the actual day. For example, it was discovered that we would be using a handheld microphone and I think the more you can practice using a clicker the better. Clickers are a nightmare. Clickers are a nightmare… CLICKERS ARE A NIGHTMARE. Luckily this one just worked.

Again, practicing shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of. It is kinda funny how everyone has their own awkward twitches and involuntary movements with their body. As soon as you realise what these are you can work to sort them out. Turns out I tend to do some awkward movements with my knees or just stand totally still like the terminator. Kicking these habits helps with overall success!

Lesson 2: Have multiple file types

Expanding on the points in lesson 1. Turning up at the practice with only a PDF version of my deck turned out not to be the best idea. ‘Your deck is corrupted, it won’t open’. This is just what you want to hear, even if you are only to speak in front of an empty room. Faffing about with technology and trying to get it in a different format at the last minute isn’t what you want to be focusing on.

Turns out after this, that a rule was made where we could only give our presentations in powerpoint format. Awesome. If only Google Slides didn’t mess up the layout of a presentation once downloaded as a powerpoint! Now, this usually wouldn’t have been a problem but when you are running an antique mac with antique software where opening a powerpoint is challenge enough. Knowing where fixes are needed is difficult.

Of course, the average person would not have left this until the last minute. I apparently, turned out not to be average and was still wrestling with the right formatting the morning of the actual pitch. It was an early start but thankfully we got it there in time. I would suggest to anyone else have your presentation in multiple formats.

Lesson 3: Make friends with others

I get it, we all work in tech so we aren’t the most outgoing people. Talking to each other helps. It really does… There were 9 other people who were in the same boat as me and were all going through the same emotions. Sure, it is a tense situation but these guys aren’t any different. They are all just trying their best and you shouldn’t feel stand-offish. They are focusing on what they are doing and you are focusing on what you are doing.