Afraid your startup pitch isn’t up to par? Why you should enter competitions anyway

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Picture you’re one of a couple hundred people packed into a chilly ballroom staring at the stage. Peppy Jesse Draper stands with all the enthusiasm I’d imagine Oprah Winfrey has when she’s about to give away a trip to somewhere very expensive and shakes an old-fashioned looking fishbowl packed with white shreds of paper.

It’s that time again, folks, she says brightly. It’s time for the Pitch Bowl.

Pitching can be stressful, but it’s an inevitable part of founding a company, and it doesn’t have to be nightmare material.

Your name, along with your company’s name, are written down on one of the papers rolling around inside, and a combination of fate and probability are about to determine whether you have to go up in front of this room and pitch your company and its purpose. Behind you will be a clock that counts down from 30 seconds – that’s how much time you have.

How are you feeling – like you’re waiting for a raffle prize or like you’re waiting for your name to be called for the Hunger Games?

Pitching can be stressful, but it’s an inevitable part of founding a company, and it doesn’t have to be nightmare material. Learning how to pitch well is a process that involves both preparation and practice, the kind of practice that you can only get from real-life situations, like the Circular Board’s Pitch with Purpose competition held a week ago in Houston, Texas.

The event was one of several that made up the Circular Summit, the first event held by the Circular Board bringing female founders together for two days of networking, dialogue, and presentations. The Pitch with Purpose competition was a startup pitch competition with a humanitarian edge – participating businesses had to tell the committee which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals they addressed as part of their applications.

The finalists all ended up receiving some of the Pitch with Purpose prizes.

From the pool, five were chosen: Naja (co-founded by Golden Globe winning actress and activist Gina Rodriguez), Piece & Co, Macromoltek, Helper Choice, and Miraculum. From that group, three – US-based Piece & Co, Hong Kong-based Helper Choice, and US- and Sweden-based Miraculum – were chosen to pitch their startups live to a panel of judges and the Circular Summit attendees, the majority of whom were female founders of American businesses.

Though Miraculum was ultimately crowned victor, Helper Choice founder Laurence Fauchon, who found out about about the competition from a Twitter post, found the competition process alone was enough to make the trip from Hong Kong to the US worth it.

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Practice makes perfect