As part of trying to put together the Pitch Masters group, this is an outline of the format for the two kinds of meetings. I would appreciate feedback on it:
- Practice Sessions: Open and social, held in an informal environment, such as a coffee shop or bar. If investors want to come to this meeting, they must also play the role of entrepreneur and have a pitch to deliver.
- 15 min – Meet and greet time where people practice delivering their Elevator Pitches.
- 30 min (broken into 2×15 min sessions) – We would split the group into two, one group takes the role of investor and the other entrepreneur, after 15 minutes, you switch rolls. A rapid public pitching round that each iteration is timed, perhaps 4 minutes for the pitch and questions, and then 1 minute for feedback. After each time, the entrepreneurs for the round play musical chairs and go pitch to a new person. You get 3 times to deliver your pitch to someone, and then you listen to other people for three rounds.
- 15 min – Wrap up and group discussion, talk about things that were experienced, new books, techniques, etc.
- Take a video of some of these pitches to use for promotional material as well as for feedback for individuals.
- The practice sessions could be quite informal, and would work with as few as 4 people, but would probably be better with 6 or more.
- Matching Sessions: Location could be an office or just somewhere that has spaces that could be used privately. I think a good size for this would be to find 5-10 investors and 15-40 entrepreneurs, but could be sized to fit available resources.
- 30 min – Meet and greet, it would be helpful to have some listing of areas of interest or expertise for all participants so that potential matches could meet socially before the pitching rounds. Investors get “dance cards” that are for booking their pitch sessions. Each entrepreneur gets 3-4 pitch slots and must manage their own sign ups to prevent conflicts (ie. Session A, B, C, D).
- 30 min – Public pitches, 7 minutes each, four rounds per investor.
- 15 min – Recess and arrangements for private pitching.
- 1 hour – Given what private meeting facilities are available, arrange private pitches for investor/entrepreneur pairs or groups. This will facilitate discussing topics that are needed to be covered by non-disclosure agreements, etc.
- Retire to a nearby pub, make announcements if there are any to be announced.
- It would be requested that angels give feedback to the people they interviewed, either catching up with them at the pub, etc. or via a note afterwards.
I like both of them, I think there should be a 20 minute pre-game plan for the Angels since this will be the first time alot of them have been into this kind of thing.I am also sensitive to the Angel’s needs, what kind of follow-up can we give them to make a better educated decision. There is no Guy Kawasaki to call in Hong Kong for a second opinion.
Someone or some group does need to be the HK Guy Kawasaki. The plan is to use both formats in an alternating order. Good point in including some briefing time for the angels pre-meeting. So far having a business plan with financials seems to be the easiest way to continue the conversation with investors that are interested in further consideration, but this would depend on what stage the company is in. Outside of that, I think we basically just have to build up a reputation.
I like practice session more, which seems to me can be implemented fairly soon in a small group.
Agreed. Let’s start small and iterate :)Practice session is definitely helpful. Just talking to the peers helps alot already. Of course, if we could find potential investors to give their views on what they are looking for, it would be a big bonus.
The plan is to have the first of the practice sessions in early Jan, and arrange a matching session in late Jan.