Next Generation: The Practice Pitch (Navigating Nerves and Feedback)

[00:00:02] Peter Rodriguez (Welcome Announcement): What you take part in tonight can absolutely change your life.

Shiv: Your heart's pounding you, your voice cracks a little bit

Julio: Do not throw the towel. I won't let you.

Sloane: I am not throwing in the towel.

Peter Rodriguez (Welcome Announcement): What you do here tonight can absolutely change the world, and it's really rare that you get to say that.

Bilal: I didn't go in there planning to do a perfect pitch.

Khalid: Executing is of course nerve-wracking, but definitely heart pumping.

Shiv: Once you get on stage and you have the muscle memory of practice, it kind of flows away,

Brad Richards: Sell yourself. Sell your team. Sell your product. Sell your idea. Sell, sell, sell.

[00:00:40] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways [00:01:00] that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:06] Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert, co-founder of Oya Fem Tech Apparel and an Ex-Rice business plan competition competitor.

[00:01:12] Andrea: Mitch, we finally made it to the competition. How is this for you?

[00:01:15] Mitch: Intense, exhausting, educational, all of the above. I don't know, but I'm excited.

[00:01:20] Andrea: Same here. When we walked in, I was feeling the nerves and the tension and I’m not even competing! So, to recap, the first day of the competition is mainly just a practice round for the competitors. And throughout the competition, the competitors will have a couple of chances to win other prizes and one of the ways they could do that is through the elevator pitch competition which also takes place today. But first, let’s join the rooms where our teams will be having their practice rounds and checking out the feedback they receive starting with DIA. As a reminder, DIA is aiming to revolutionize the healthcare industry by bringing at home clinical grade lab testing right to the patient’s home. [00:02:00] They transform healthcare testing by using saliva instead of blood.”

In today’s episode you will hear a difference in audio because a lot of this was captured on the go with competitors, or live in auditoriums or big classrooms. So please excuse some of the audio.

[00:02:20] Sloane: Hey everybody. My name's Sloan Tilley. I'm the CEO and co-founder of DIA Previously Sentience.

Julio: I'm Julio Fredin. I'm the Chief Science Officer and also co-founder.

[00:02:30] Sloane: And we're excited to talk to you today about how DIA's game changing technology is going to disrupt the at-home biomarker monitoring system. Save the US healthcare system, millions of dollars and potentially millions of lives.

[00:02:43] Andrea: Ok so starting strong. With a bold product but there’s something about this product that Sloane and Julio haven’t been able to avoid. People unfairly associate Sloane to Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos, [00:03:00] an infamous health tech company whose business model was based on the idea of running blood tests that required only a finger pinprick and a small amount of blood. As a result, Holmes is currently serving an 11-year term in federal prison. Quite a comparison to make right? Here’s Julio.

[00:03:20] Julio: I'm gonna drop the T word a little bit because it's, it's one thing that we always have to fight against you know, the whole Theranos debacle and how that sent women in entrepreneurship and hard hard tech entrepreneurship back 20 years, right? So we're fighting to get us back to where we were. And one of that is just letting people know like, look, we're not gonna give you like this, this ridiculousness about one droplet of autogenous fluid giving you all the data of all the things. Okay, that's ridiculous. But there's some very cool things we can do with the, with microfluidic and electrochemistry that we're excited to do and are still going to change lives, right?

[00:03:53] Sloane: She set female, particularly female science entrepreneurs back two decades. And I have had people [00:04:00] look straight in my face and be like, well, you remind me of her. I'm just like, uh, well, the difference there is that I have two master's degrees. I wish personally that it wasn't a thing that I had to overcome because it does feel somewhat unfair, but it's reality.

[00:04:15] Andrea: And now let’s go back to the room to listen to some of the feedback they received. These were all in person, in the rooms, so you might note a change in audio.

[00:04:25] Judges: I don't think you should mention this, but you should be aware of that Theranos is in the room when it comes to chemical sensor companies. I've lived this, like, they created incredible problems like in the financing community. It's a problem though, because, I mean, what, you know, if you can do a lot of different tests, it's, I'm sure you've heard that before. It's a cloud, you know, it really is.

Sloane: Every single pitch.

Judges: Be prepared for a question on that, and, you know, it just sounds too good to be true. I don't know what the answer is gonna be, but there's gonna be a question about that.

[00:04:55] Mitch: Recency bias is real.

Andrea: Can you tell me what recency bias is, in your own words?

[00:05:00] Mitch: So based on my understanding of recency bias, it's when people overemphasize the importance of recent experiences or latest information when thinking about future events. And so because Elizabeth Holmes was the most recent and famous woman in Biosciences, it makes sense that people are comparing Sloan to her even if their ideas are very different.

[00:05:25] Andrea: So yeah, the judges picked up on the Theranos thing -- but that's not the only feedback Julio and Sloane received

[00:05:32] Judges: Most people, most investors, especially in a business plan, competition setting, they want to know that their money is in good hands. And part of that is -a big part of it is like, okay, I trust this person with money. This person's an adult, you know, blah, blah, blah. They know what their business. And how do you convey that? It's like part of its subtle, part of it's not so subtle.

[00:05:55] Judges: So you got a lot of great technical stuff. I'm gonna give you some presentation. Counsel, come forward. [00:06:00] You actually started behind the desk. It's a, it's a conversation and the more personal you can make it, the less presentationing, the more you're gonna connect with great state in terms of how you deliver. And we're all gonna be honest. So, if you keep rocking back and forth, I'm going to come up there and staple your damn feet for the floor. I'm serious because she's trying to get points across and I see you moving and human nature is, if you see something moving, it's going to kill you.

Julio: Makes sense.

Judges: Right. So I keep looking over this way.

Julio: I'm not kill you. I know I'm big, but it's okay.

Judges: No matter it's the way we're wired. I'm losing track of what she's talking about because you're moving. So, Plant your feet. Okay? Don't play with your beard, don't play with your pockets. You're an executive in the firm, deliver that way.

Judges: And I would say people are generally, especially technologists, are not natural presenters. It takes a lot of practice to get comfortable with it. You froze there for a minute.

Julio: Yeah.

[00:07:00] Judges: It happens to everyone. Mm-hmm. I would come up with some sort of device that you feel comfortable with to kind of get past the pause and I would try to like not memorize completely.

[00:07:10] Andrea: Here’s more of the conversation that Mitch had with DIA after the feedback round…

Mitch @ Event: Okay. So you're killing it on market opportunity, everyone seems to be feeling like they, they understand why your solution will help do that. Competitive differentiation you could get better at.

Julio: So we need to talk more about the tech cuz that's our competitive differentiator.

Sloane: The conundrum that we're in is that your, your presentation style is the weakest, but that's also where we need to come across with the competitive advantage. We need to go simpler.

Julio: They want us to go with competitive advantage, so I need to talk about our actual competitors. I need to like explain very simply what they do and why it sucks compared to us.

[00:07:50] Andrea: Ok so the big things for Dia based on that round were: Making their competitive differentiator very clear. To name or to not name past women in the space. [00:08:00] And of course, presentation skills. We’ll see how this develops. Now, let's catch up with Unchained. As a reminder, Unchained is a platform, that aims to advance early talent recruiting methods by strengthening the connection between Diverse Early talent and all size corporations.

[00:08:20] Bilal: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bilal Issifou.

Nasir: I am Nasir Jones,

Bilal: And we are the founders of Unchained Inc. A talent platform develops specifically for employers interested in engaging in hiring diverse early talent. So before I start, I want you to imagine you're a college student.

It's your freshman and sophomore year, and you're looking to find your first internship. You go to school career services, you don't succeed, you apply to hundreds online job platforms. You don't find your internship. And by the grace of God, you land your first internship, which prompts you to realize your full potential and inspires you and a classmate to build a platform to help other companies connect with students, just like you. [00:09:00] Now, in only two and a half years, we've been able to reach over 15,000 early time professionals.

[00:09:10] Andrea: And then there was some feedback…

[00:09:12] Judges: you should highlight sort of the value proposition for your clients and how, how you're, I guess you're helping them extend their budget by accessing a greater data pool of, of candidates.

Judges: Since you are looking at underrepresented communities, getting them into organizations, one of the KPIs I think you're gonna want to find as you start to scale is actually the retention of those people in those organizations. Mm-hmm. That is with, you talk about recruiting, so hiring that's paramount. This is very important for y'all.

Judges: The filter, the AI that you talked about, um, you talked about your screening. Yes. Right. I think it'd be important to help us understand if there's any, uh, intellectual property behind that. In other words, if there's any, anything unique that's defensible or patented, behind that technology and maybe some information about [00:10:00] a little more how it works and, and how y'all developed it.

Judges: You can't tell a long-winded story. There's a word that I can use called coaching. It means clear and concise, right? Everything you say, everything you drive across has to feel that way. When you started out, you started out going through the things that you have accomplished, which was slide three. Immediately after saying, hey, this is what we are. You should have said, this is what we are. This is the problem we solve here is the value proposition to companies. Here is the value proposition to students. Here are the ambassadors and how all of that connects together. Really, really be comfortable with that story and be able to articulate it very quickly.

Revisit your slides. There's way too much information on the slides. Okay. Way too much information. Like, it's easy if you just have three or four bullets. Each slide should have a specific purpose. [00:11:00] The problem, the solution, the technology, the market, the finance.

I want to talk about TAM. Total addressable market is the total amount if you capture the entire world's market of dollars going into your pocket. So where do those dollars come from? The decision maker here probably is someone in HR. These are HR dollars spent for specifically recruiting. And this is probably the most important portion of this entire deck you are presenting to investors.

[00:11:30] Andrea: And I'm sure you're wondering how they might've felt after receiving all this feedback...

[00:11:35] Bilal: I think it was a productive practice session. From a high-performance standpoint, like that wasn't our best performance or best pitch. But from a practicality standpoint, like it did go the way I wanted it to because I wanted an uncomfortable situation that like allowed us to see our faults because we look at this information 24/7, we understand that we're ingrained in it. So like it's hard for us to see what others don't see.

[00:12:00] Nasir: I believe it didn't display our best ability of understanding our market, our scope, our technology, and how, more so our understanding of just recruiting in general. But I do believe it displayed a chance for us to be able to really learn from others. Maybe some people in our space, maybe some people have different skill sets, and just really dive into the presentation itself. And find out what needs to be fixed, adjusted, and just maybe switched around.

Andrea @ event: What are the top three things you're gonna go back and work on for tomorrow.

Bilal: Simplicity on the slides, clarity on value proposition, and confidence in market and financials.

[00:12:40] Andrea: To recap some of the feedback they got: 1. Showing a clear value proposition, 2. Explaining how they will retain clients as they scale, 3. Talking about the intellectual property behind their AI, 4. Being clear about the structure of their uncapped safe, [00:13:00] 5. Talking about the total addressable market, and 6. Presentation skills.

And if like me, this was your first time hearing the term, uncapped safe, here’s a little explainer: In the context of investments, the term "uncapped safe" refers to a type of financial agreement that allows investors to invest money in a company or startup in exchange for a future return.

[00:13:24] Mitch: An uncapped safe is not a very popular venture capital investment vehicle. It means that an investor can invest in your company and benefit from the company growing without any predetermined limits on how much their investment can grow. Investors don't like that though because they have to report numbers back to their investors or their gps, and so they want to see limits so that way they can kind of calculate what their investment opportunity could turn into. So an uncapped safe is definitely an investment vehicle, but it's not very popular.

[00:14:00] Andrea: Phew… that’s a lot. Let’s take a breather. Coming up we’re checking in with Active Surfaces.

[00:14:10] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:15:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:15:20] Andrea: Alright, we’re back… let’s listen in on the feedback that Active Surfaces got after their practice pitch. As a reminder, Active surfaces is a thin film, solar technology spinning out of MIT aiming to make solar anywhere.

Shiv: So we are Active Surfaces, and we are reimagining solar. My name is Shiv and I'm in charge of business development.

Khalid: My name is Khalid and I'm lead in customer discovery.

Shiv: We envision a future where you can have lightweight, low cost, flexible power for any surface.

[00:15:50] Andrea: And here's what judges had to say…

[00:15:54] Judges: To me in this presentation, you got a lot of hype going on, which is really exciting to see, [00:16:00] and certainly potential is huge. But I like to know at the beginning, where are you in this process? What are the specific performance metrics that you compare and then start building out, you know, tell me how long it's gonna take to get there. The market. I, I believe all of that. But the starting point doesn't give me the platform. I need to think through and, and I wanna see what your revenue projection looks like for three years out and four years out or something, which is where I'm gonna see as an investor, the return coming back to me.

[00:16:35] Judges: I definitely look at any of the businesses through people, processes, technology or the supply chain as the fourth pillar. So if you can think from these buckets and be like amazing people, which is show technology, you definitely talk about, but then you have to go into the details of the risk part of it. You understand there is a risk of scaling. Mm-hmm. That's why you're asking the money to de-risk it. Yeah. [00:17:00] But do talk about how you'll be like, is it you need better process engineers? Do you need better processing? And optimization technologies that don't exist today, or you're after them, do they already exist and you just need the money to get access, or do you need to develop those in the whole scalability piece effect? Is material science an issue or not? Is supply chain an issue or not? The moment you capture or touch upon these points and how you're risking using investors money mm-hmm. Then your story, it's, it's already an amazing story by, you're not trying to be just a feedback as in the moment you do that, then it's a slam dunk.

[00:17:38] Andrea: Sooo, let's find out how Active Surfaces felt after receiving all that feedback...

Khalid: I think it went well. I think of room to grow and uh, you know, 24 hours before we go again or 20 hours we go again.

Shiv: I'm also impressed how quickly the judges were able to dissect the important parts of the presentation, the questions they have, give us feedback that was meaningful all within the span of 15 minutes. So I'm glad that we're able, we're able to incorporate that before tomorrow.

[00:18:00] Khalid: Shiv did a great job, um, leading the team and closing it out and, uh, let's do better tomorrow. You know?

Shiv: We're gonna update the slides to make sure it has less numbers in the beginning that appear to be a problem. People need to believe that we can actually scale up the technology and we have ways to do that, but it's not being conveyed enough in the deck, I think. And I think there is concern or questions about how the technology works, and we don't want that to wait until the q and a. We want them to believe that technology works.

[00:18:33] Andrea: So here’s a summary of the feedback: Interesting enough with this team, they didn’t get feedback on their presentation skills. What we did hear was 1. What are their performance metrics that show how long it’ll take to get them to where they want to be and where are they now? 2. What does their revenue projection look like in the next 3 to 5 years? 3. What are their risks and challenges? 4. And what is it that they need to make this happen apart from money? [00:19:00] Does that tech exist or is building it part of getting the desired result?

These are hard questions to answer but it sounds like that’s something the team is prepared to do. Let’s see how Outmore Living is doing. As a reminder Outmore Living is re-imagining the future of your outdoor spaces. So their furniture is battery powered, heated outdoor furniture.

[00:19:25] Kevin: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living, and I'm excited today to talk to y'all about our company's goal to reimagine the future of outdoor spaces.

[00:19:32] Andrea: And here's some of the feedback Kevin and Alex received from the judges:

[00:19:36] Judges: I think you should show the product first, talk about this is why it's different and here's how we got here.

Judges: On that note, maybe mentioning car seat warmers could be a good analogy. So that can help put people on: is this something that sells? Yes, it does. Especially in cars.

Judges: I was left with the presentation not feeling anything. And I think that, you know, when you're in the, the CPG category and your working with consumer products. [00:20:00] Like I look at this and this is a beautiful chair and I just didn't feel anything in the presentations. The way you can bridge that gap either by putting people in the chair or you know, maybe taking out some of the, the analytical component at the beginning. Okay. Will be really helpful.

[00:20:16] Judges: So one other thing I thought about, and I hate for companies to be focused on the exit because you know, you really should focus on customer acquisition and growth, but you know, there's really two options for a next move. You can either get acquired or you can go public. Getting acquired is much easier than going public. Mm-hmm. So, you know, if I'm thinking about it from. You know, an acquisition perspective, who would be your target acquirers? Cause there's so many people that already have chairs that look like this. So incremental value is really only the heating element, not the, the chair.

[00:20:48] Andrea: And we got to speak them right after to hear their thoughts on it.

[00:20:52] Kevin: I think it went pretty well. I mean, we definitely got some feedback that we'll iterate into our next pitch, but overall, I mean, I could see like a lot of excitement from some of the judges. [00:21:00] One of the cool things when we explain our product is you get to see people's like eyes light up and definitely felt that from some of 'em. There wasn't anything that Alex and I can't adjust to tonight. So I think we'll have a long night, but we will, we'll make the changes we need to make to be successful tomorrow.

[00:21:18] Alex: Kevin and I were a little bit long on time, so we'll have to kind of be more concise. A lot of great feedback. It's always interesting hearing what people want teased out a little bit more, or didn't quite capture in the presentation. It's, it's great because Kevin and I have said these words so many times that we kind of forget what a, a set of completely fresh eyes may not pick up on in our presentation.

[00:21:42] Andrea: Ok so recap! It sounds here like Kevin and Alex didn’t actually get as much feedback compared to other teams. But here is what was said: 1. Showing the product first is key, 2. Thinking of an analogy everyone can relate to so that they care more about the product and why it matters, and 3. Thinking about their exit strategy. [00:22:00] Mitch, that was a lot we got through today.

[00:22:06] Mitch: It is. These are some jam-packed days and we're not even done yet. After following our teams through the practice rounds, we finally made it to the end of the day and now to the elevator pitches.

Andrea: 60 seconds to really show who you are and what you’ve got to offer.

Samantha Lewis: What can you say and what's gonna hook us quickly enough to get us to a next meeting?

[00:22:27] Andrea: So, let's hear our team's 60 second elevator pitches...

[00:22:33] Shiv: I'm Shiv from Active Services and we're re-imagining solar. Who here has seen a solar panel? They're around yay big, weigh 50 to 60 pounds, and they're encased in thick glass. Why? They're heavy and flexible. Cas silicon is a ceramic and it's fragile, but what if you thought about solar differently? What if you could click, put solar on any surface and make it active? That's what we do. Our MIT developed technology makes solar panels 120 times lighter. They're thinner than a human hair. [00:23:00] Our beachhead market of commercial warehousing only has 3% of rooftop PV today. That's 300 billion in market potential. Just because it can't handle the weight of solar. Our team is the one to unlock this capability. We are coming from MIT, we have industry leading advisors, we're a part of the best climate tech accelerators in the program, and we have industry researchers helping us. If you can envision a future where any surface is active, then join us.

[00:23:32] Bilal: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Beal Issifou, founder of Unchained Inc. And we are a talent platform, specifically built for companies seeking to engage diverse early career professionals. So I want you to imagine you're a campus recruiter who's eager about recruiting diverse talent. You currently spend your budget on career services and online job platforms, but the issue is 60% of students never visit career services. Of the 40% that do only 14% find it helpful. [00:24:00] 75% of online resumes never make it to a recruiter and amongst diverse candidates, this disparity is higher because 6% of black professionals reported that they didn't secure an internship. 7.9% Hispanic students haven't secured an internship in comparison to 74% of of white early career professionals. We built this platform to help employers connect with more high quality, diverse candidates than other solutions. We do this through our hybrid recruiting model that pairs our platform with in-person engagements to deliver direct qualified candidates to, to companies that seek them. In only two and a half years, we've reached over 15,000 early career professionals. We've worked with 14 Fortune 500 companies, and we've helped over 300 students get connected with corporations interested in them. At Unchained Inc, we make every day a career fair. Thank you.

[00:25:00] Kevin: By a show of hands, how many people here have spent a night sitting around a fire with family and friends? No need to raise your hand on this one, but think about it. How many of those nights ended early because it was too cold outside? The reality is fires bring people together, but they don't necessarily keep you warm. Good evening, everybody. My name is Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living. At Outmore, we believe time spent outdoors is time best spent. Yet 80% of consumers are dissatisfied with their outdoor living spaces, claiming the outdoor furniture is too expensive for its seasonal usage. Outmore living is determined to change that. Born around a fire on a crestfallen night. A simple offhanded comment, I wish our seats were heated, led to a two-year journey that has culminated in us launching the world's first battery powered, heated outdoor furniture. Our patent pending technology and design will forever change the outdoor living industry from backyards to rooftops. We're excited to be leading with our mission to help people connect and be out more. Thank you. [00:26:00]

[00:26:08] Sloane: I woke up this morning to a text from my best friends. She's going through I V F and she's not responding normally, so her doctor has asked her to come in every single day to get her blood drawn to have her monitored. She's a patent attorney, doesn't really have time for that, and also doesn't feel very well while she's going through all this hormone treatment. And I unfortunately know what that's like. I could have avoided two major surgeries if my biomarkers could have been monitored at home after I got hit by a car on my bike, that's why I invented the DIA device. My name's Sloane Tilley and we have a patent pending electrochemical non-invasive sensor. It works with sweat or saliva, and to date, we've already measured hormones, metabolites, neurotransmitters, and electrolytes. We have a team made of myself who I will graduate from Duke Business School actually this weekend, so I'm missing it for y'all. You're welcome. [00:27:00] Along with Electro Chemist and an engineer, if you wanna come get a baseline of your hydration status before we start drinking that delicious wine, come see us. But you probably won't beat the Navy Seals that I was drinking with these past three days at Soft Week. Cheers.

[00:27:20] Andrea: Okay, now we've covered everything that happened on our first day and I'm feeling excited for the next two days. But also really nervous to see what happens and who's going to win. This is just the practice round, we'll be really getting into the competition on the second day where we'll find out if some of our teams make it to semi-finals and hopefully the finals as well. So, the drama is just starting. I mean, now the teams have less than a day to incorporate the feedback they received and change up their pitches for the first round of pitching.

[00:27:52] Mitch: Yeah, and each competitor really needs to know what's do they need, right? So they either they get a good night's rest [00:28:00] or they let the anxiety fuel them and they're up studying super early. I'm definitely in the ladder camp, but either which way, I do not envy them right now.

[00:28:10] Andrea: And since this episode was filled with a ton of helpful feedback from the judges, here are some of the key takeaways from today's episode, and we do mean key, because there was too much info on today’s episode:

• Mitch: One. Let's start with presentation skills, because it's one of the most important parts of a pitch competition. It was mentioned a lot by judges because judges want to be wowed and impressed and moved almost like they're seeing Ariana Grande perform for them on stage. So, when we were talking to our teams, we emphasized the importance of being confident, taking up space, not hiding behind a desk, not stuttering, making sure your lines are delivered smoothly. And it was a really great practice round because that's the only way that you're gonna get better and be able to flow seamlessly from one thought to the next.
• [00:29:00] Andrea: And make your presentation slides as clear, and concise as possible. Less words are better sometimes.
• Andrea: Two. Showing a clear value proposition. What makes you different? Unique? How do you stand out among the competition? Why should investors want to be involved with YOU instead of someone else doing something similar?
• Mitch: It's also really important that our teams talk about their total addressable market, or TAM for short. TAM refers to the maximum number of people who could have demand for your product, and the closer you can get it to a billion dollars, the sexier it sounds for venture capitalists because they know that you're not gonna necessarily hit that billion dollars, but they really want the growth and earning potential to work. And so there are a lot of amazing businesses that will do well, but are not necessarily venture backable businesses because their tam cannot, they cannot scale the business enough in order to like really reach a TAM of a billion dollars. So something to think about.
• [00:30:00] Mitch: Three. Roadmaps. Communicating where you are, where you're going and how you'll get there as clearly as possible is one of the most important things that you should be able to do as someone pitching at a pitch competition. And also, once you have investment, being able to communicate when you hit roadblocks and where you wanna go, and how do you need help. These skill sets may seem maybe not the most important but that is a prerequisite skill for having any level of investor. They want monthly updates, quarterly updates, yearly updates, and being able to describe your road roadmap and your roadblocks and challenges is, has been really important for me being able to rally my investors behind me.
• Andrea: And speaking of that ride, don’t forget about making clear what the structure of their future investments will look like.
• Andrea: Four. What’s the risk? What will the challenges look like? How will you mitigate them? It can’t all be rose-colored glasses.
• [00:31:00] Mitch: And risk might potentially be one of the key things that investors consider when making the decision of investing or not. And I wouldn't even just say whether it's risky, but more like the founders of ability to recognize risk and come up with mitigation plans. And so when Oya pitched that rice, we had a whole slide that was just dedicated to risks and what our mitigation strategies for all of those risks would be. Investors expect you to get put on your butt, but the more planning that you have flushed out, the more that they feel confident that you're gonna be able to handle whatever life throws at you.

Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:32:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:32:42]