Part 2 Pitching a Story | Pitching Workshop

Alright, so before we begin, like Joe said, we're going to go through the structure and all that, but I think the most important thing to remember is that you are the focal point of this presentation. Personally, I've sat through countless pitches and the one thing I'm always focusing on is the person. I mean, I look at their slides, but if there's text, it's too distracting. So keep in mind you want to use as many images as possible, least amount of text.

Alright, so I'm going to go ahead and start off with the presentation.

So use things like charts, cool backgrounds, and really stay away from really bright font colors. So like orange, yellow, it just doesn't work. Just like this, you know, the black background— or blue background with the white, it makes it really easy to read. And yeah, it's called a pitch because you're, you know— you guys watch baseball or know about baseball?

Yeah.

So when you pitch it, right, the other person needs to catch it. You want to present your information in a way that is easily understandable.

Cool?

So the first slide, just simple. Your company name. Also, you can include your mission statement, your vision, also your names.

Cool.

And by the way, I know you guys are all pretty far along in the process of raising. Most of you have raised quite a bit of money. But the reason we go through this is because following an actual structure that has worked countless times with, for example, Tim Draper and VCs around here, may give you a different perspective. Usually, and I saw this when Ed started pitching, he went straight into the solution that he was building. And I know, and me standing on the side and kind of knowing you already, it was a little bit hard for me to understand the actual business at first. You're more familiar with what he's trying to build, so it was a bit easier for you. So what we do— To solve that is we can start with an actual story. So a story— and your whole pitch is an actual story about your customers, about you, about your company. So really personalize it. What I like to do is usually pick out one of your current customers and put the investor or put your audience in your customer's shoes with an actual story. So for example, what business? Let me see. For you, right?

Yeah.

What was your name?

Shi.

Shi. So Shi, you're building within email, you're building the ability to be able to, I guess, book the flight or just reserve the flight, right? So what would be a story that you could tell the audience as a customer of yours? Let's relate it to somebody specific. Pablo has trouble booking flights. He always misses flights. Sits down at his computer, what is that actual story that you could integrate into this?

The story is more of a seamless connect to your flight. Instead of the booking, we're actually doing post-booking. You say right now, if you check into a flight, you have to go to the website or the app to copy-paste all these PR numbers and ticket numbers, which is lengthy and only actually You want to give travelers easy access to their flight instead of doing all this. What about opening email and your itinerary? There's no checking.

Got it.

Cool. That's almost like more problem-solution set. So the story might be something like a time that you had missed your flight because you couldn't have access to that stuff, let's say, if that makes sense, right? Like man, like it was so hard for me to book my flight last time. I missed my you know my brother's graduation from college because you know like some sort of thing that doesn't like give it away right there. Personalized.

Exactly.

That caused you to want to do it, and a lot of times the story should kind of allude to what that problem solution set's going to be, but it also is the time to. It should allow for you to emotionally sell them and make it so it's teed up so that they want to pay attention to what you're going to be saying next. And it should also explain why it is that you're the person who's going to be solving that thing. So like it sets the course for what you're going to be doing.

Awesome. Yeah, so that was perfect. So the emotional power is something we touch on. For audiences, whether you're sitting down with just one investor, Several investors. It helps put them on the shoes of your customer, of the actual story of you, why you started. So do you want to try that again with maybe a story?

Absolutely.

The story I'm telling you is my personal flight experience. On the way from Tel Aviv to San Francisco, I realized it's a long-haul flight, and all I need is a seat with more extra. I went online to ml.com, and that experience turns out to be like a death nugget. It takes me like 7 pages and 8 minutes, 40 clicks, just to be able to log in and see what is available to me. And then I decided, if something's wrong, you can change that.

Perfect. I think that was way better, and it helps you put it into perspective. Anybody else want to give a shot to their story?

I'll call on someone.

How about your story, Juan?

I could. I would rather you guys do it, but I could create a story, or one, for example, for Kevin's business.

Sure, I can do mine. So when I was in college, I spent a lot of time playing pickup games of basketball. And for me, I experienced a lot of great friendships this way. But there were a lot of problems associated with this. It was hard to find a game, hard to find people to play against sometimes. And then in the end, it was hard to connect with them. So I started my mobile app for organizing and discovering local pickup games.

Cool.

Just one more of you guys to give that a shot. Can you give it a shot? I'm the worst pitcher. That's good.

It's not a personal story though.

Could be about your customer, one of your customers.

Yeah, I mean the problem usually businesses have is that the business travel booking tools are too complicated and not really easy to use. B2C online booking tools are much easier to use. So most of the companies are using— most of the employees in companies prefer to use these online booking tools, which are meant to be for B2C. So what we're doing is we're bringing the usability of the B2C product, like Priceline, Expedia, and all these So you're kind of like doing what and how, but you have to do more why, right?

If that makes sense.

Yeah.

It's almost too tactical, right? Don't get into the weeds of that stuff yet. Kind of stay more high level, but like do it with a story that's kind of selling them and hooks them so that they want to listen to the stuff they're going to say next.

So if I was trying to tell that in a story mode, I would be like— I work at Microsoft, and one day I was peeking over my shoulder and I asked my friend, hey, what are you doing? Like, why are you booking on this site? He's like, oh man, I hate this tool that Microsoft gives us to actually book the flights. Like, man, the thing really sucks. Like, you know, I really wish there was just something that was way better. And like, I spend all my time booking— every single week I book flights and I spend like, you know, hours and hours. Microsoft was slow. If they were smart, they would let us use this much more easier tool. And then I realized, like, oh shit, this is a huge problem that I can solve. Like, I can actually make this way more seamless. And Microsoft probably would even want to pay for this because of how much time I'm spending every single week of time they're paying me to book these flights.

That would be the story. Yeah.

Exactly.

And the way you did it is you didn't go out and say what the problem was. We kind of came to that conclusion ourselves, right?

It's the— you're telling— you can also tell it in like an origin story where it's like, and then I had this spark, right? Like, that's what investors would think, like, wow, this guy had a really special insight in this special moment because of things that happened. And then you can also bring out what Zach's saying is like why at the end of it they should be like, wow, this guy was smart that he even had that insight.

That's a spark.

It's a special sort of entrepreneurial skill that they have. And wow, they're definitely the right person to do this because they're super passionate about that problem because they saw it in real life. That's what gets them excited.

Perfect.

The story's really cool, but the problem is what if it's not true?

Well, I mean, it helps if it's a true story.

Yeah, a true story always helps.

I'm making up stories. I'm just trying to help. But yeah, usually if you don't have true stories, then get on the phone with your customers and talk to them until you have a real one.

Or you could actually just personalize the actual problem down to somebody's name. It doesn't have to be a real name. I mean, it really helps if it's like an actual customer. But the story is just to set the audience, the investor, in the right mindset to understand what you're going to really be pitching later on.

But it's a pitch. I still think if you have to make up a story, it's better than not having one.

I agree.

Like I said, if you don't have a real story and you do have customers, then talk to your customers until you get a real story. And then yeah.

By the way, in your case, guys, I think that's also some potential VCs can also be your potential clients. So maybe you can like pitch them in a way that you will give them like examples on yourself because for example, VC with like twenty partners and everyone all. who have always traveled around the world, so ask them. What are your options when you're like, book a flight? You can go to an OTA or go to an agency, right? What else can bring you a better option?

I think that's— I mean, yeah, you can bring up hypothetical stories and be like, look, this is hypothetical, but I have a lot of VC friends, and I know they go through these issues. And like, hey, when was the last time that you tried to do this? I think that's— tell stories like that all the time. Sometimes when I pitch people out in public, like I'm just at the bar or something, I'll just be like, hey, when was the last time For favor, for example, it's like, hey, when was the last time you were super hungover and couldn't get out of bed? Oh, like tomorrow? Okay, sweet. Well, like, yeah, use this. Or, you know, the new company we're starting, it's in— we're starting like a whole new experience for tenants and landlords. And like, so I'll say like, hey, you know what, like, how have you rented a house before? Right? Like, how— when you wanted to get that house fixed, Like, how much of a pain in the ass was it?

Right?

And then they'll be like, oh yeah, actually, like, my landlords are shitty, like super shitty. And then like, yeah, and then I'll be like, yeah, we're solving that problem. So you just try to relate to people.

Exactly.

I call it the emotional part, I call it strumming the heartstrings.

Oh, that's nice.

And you strum their heartstrings a little bit, and then everyone, then they'll listen to you the whole rest of the pitch. If you don't hook them in the beginning, Then, you know, what you're saying is, you know—

Yeah.