Entrepreneurship Hub

Pitch Presentation Guidelines

Pitch Presentations

Pitching your idea to seek seed funding and investor support is often an integral part of the work that a founder and co-founder do. This is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions for you to consider as you prepare for your pitch presentation. See also: more information about Building and Presenting a Pitch Deck as part of the E-Hub Knowledge-Base.  

Signaling the Judges

You can signal the judges by letting them know the cell or cells that best describe your startup idea. Consider this table: 

 

Track

Type of VentureHealthcareTechnologySustainabilityGeneral
An idea best described as innovative, like Uber or Facebook    
A idea for a small business like a restaurant or brewery    
An idea that extends or diversifies a family business    
An idea that represents your passion in the creative industries     
An idea that represents something else entirely    
  • It is likely that you will pick one of the rows (type of business).
  • You may pick one or more columns (which track best represents your idea). See the Track descriptions (near the bottom).
  • That will allow you to place an "X" in the one or two cells in the table in 

"Making" the Pitch

  1. Your pitch presentation is not the same as a class presentation
  2. You are competing against other teams for a limited pot of money
  3. So, even if your pitch presentation is great, the judges may still rank other presentations higher
  4. Communicate three fundamental things:
    • You have a great idea (and here's why)
    • You have a great team that is willing to work hard (and here's why)
    • You have a great plan of action, and you are ready to execute (and this is how)
  5. Let the judges and investors feel that:
    • They can trust you to use the seed funds well to develop your venture
    • You really know your ideas well and are ready to answer any questions
    • Your team is dedicated to growing the business venture further

Pitch Contents

  1. Pitch presentations vary during the entrepreneurship journey
  2. In the early stages, you may focus on the problem statement and idea
  3. As the business matures, you may focus on scale, growth and other concerns (which the judges are made aware of)
    1. See more about Building and Presenting a Pitch Deck as part of the E-Hub Knowledge-Base.
  4. See below the guidelines and templates:
    1. Phase 1 = 4 minute pitch + questions from judges
    2. Phase 2 = 5 minute pitch + questions from judges
    3. Phase 3 = 8 minute pitch + questions from judges

Build the Ideas for the Pitch Presentation

One way to build your ideas is to draw on the AI capabilities in the MIT Orbit Platform, available to the Bentley community as a resource. You can do several things with the platform including, but not limited to:

  • Understanding the market potential
  • Assessing the beachhead market
  • Developing personas for your customers
  • Charting your competitive position
  • Estimating customer lifetime value
  • Estimating cost of customer acquisition
  • And much, much more (this is your ChatGPT on steroids for entrepreneurship)

Open Pitch Presentations

  1. If you prefer to be fully in stealth-mode, you cannot benefit from an Incubator.
  2. Asking judges, mentors and attendees to sign an NDA is not an option.
  3. However, our mentors and judges adhere to an honest broker policy, they are here to help.
  4. As investors say: "Ideas are many - it is the implementation that counts."

How do I best prepare for the actual presentation?

  1. There are three important things: practice, practice, practice (and get feedback along the way)
  2. You can and should, of course, listen to and watch others pitching (the E-Hub will share pointers)
  3. You can benefit from a large set of resources on the web.
  4. You can also reach out to Faculty and Alumni Mentors.