VoIP Venture Pitch
http://www.silicon.com/videos/view/sixty-second/60-second-pitch-identity-verification-60725972/
I chose to critique a venture pitch about VoIP as our school district recently changed over to one. ShoreTell’s pitch to the panel of experts from Silicon.com was interesting. It’s actually quite amazing how quickly 60 seconds goes by and ShoreTell’s Mark Swendsen is caught up by the short time. However, he does manage to hook the panel and through a set of questions and answers, he does end up getting the green light from the panel for his venture.
Swendsen is a credible speaker with a clear concept of his product who speaks well. He speaks at a good pace, looks good and has numbers to back up his claim. The VoIP venture isn’t a new one and he acknowledges that while still being able to commend his company’s product while allowing for the competition. He knows his market and the panel he is talking to. As much as he may not finish his entire pitch in 60 seconds, he is able to engage and pique the interest of the panel for them to allow him to continue and ask questions of his venture.
I believe the potential for this type of product is pretty high as we are seeing more and more providers for VoIP and the proof is that North Vancouver School District has just implemented it.
Posted in: Week 03: Analyst Bootcamp
jenaca 3:45 am on September 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I also found this pitch to be very interesting and I really enjoyed the way he started out asking the panel questions about the current market. I agree that he is a confident speaker and speaks very clear! Great fine!
jenaca 3:46 am on September 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
****Great Find!!
bcourey 5:53 am on September 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I noted that he spent 20 seconds just on the pain point of his pitch..he had too many possible problems listed (and he spoke slowly through this part) so that he had to speed up so significantly that I had difficulty understanding him…and he still didn’t get it all in. He needed to find a more succinct way to state the pain point – a single statement that summarizes his list of issues that his product will solve. Another note: the audience looked like a team that would not be easily impressed by any pitch! Or is that just me thinking they looked grumpy?
themusicwoman 12:04 pm on September 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hahahaha! I thought they were grumpy, too! And I didn’t think they were going to give him the green light, either.
carmencheung 6:01 am on September 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I also think the panel looked grumpy, especially the one on the far right. I wonder if they are actual CEO’s. As for the pace of the speaker, if you just listen to the pitch without watching the video, it does seem to me that he was speaking too slowly. However, if you look at his facial expressions, it seems that he was calm and was genuinely trying to see if his product could be a solution to the panel’s problem..
Everton Walker 12:44 pm on September 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting pitch. Even though he never came across as being confident, he was knowledgeable of his content due to the manner in which he answered the questions posed at him. Even though I am not a businessman, I would certainly follow up on this venture as it seems to be credible and workable.
David Vogt 5:18 am on September 25, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
For those of you that might watch TV shows like “Dragons’ Den”, keep them in mind for these panel-based pitches. While both aim to be “real”, the dynamic of having the pitch/response recorded significantly alters how the venture capital (VC) people behave. In the end VCs thrive on self-promotion, so they’ll all be projecting their own unique persona as much as possible.
When you pitch a venture, you might be part of a public presentation like these, or you might be part of a closed-door session with a panel of VCs, but by far the most often you’ll be one-on-one with an individual. That makes for a different kind of pitch, much more personal in context. As VCs tend to be a tight-knit community, if one is unsure of your pitch he/she will likely ask you to also pitch (individually) to one of their colleagues who might know your opportunity space better. Then they’ll decide between them whether one or both may go further with you. It’s a very “social” process.
David
themusicwoman 12:05 pm on September 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks, David. I actually kinda wondered about the “socialness” of it and if they all knew each other or at least each other’s reputations.