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7 Huge Startup Pitch Competition Mistakes

Winning a startup pitch competition can make all the difference for your new business. In addition to massive exposure, it can bring hefty prize money and backing from seasoned investors perfect for your venture.

Startup pitch competitions take place just about everywhere, so finding one near you isn’t too hard.

Here are some of the best startup pitch competitions around. These are the ones you should really try to get into:

Remember that these are only some of the biggest startup pitch competitions around. You may find other rewarding competitions locally.

Now let’s move on to the meat of this article. How do you increase your chances of winning a startup pitch competition?

Just follow this advice…

Not Preparing for the Q&A Session after the Pitch

Most startup pitch competitions feature a panel of judges or investors that ask you questions after your presentation. These questions are actually more important than the pitch itself… they also happen to be pretty tough.

Can you prepare for every tough question they may ask? No. But you can clarify your objectives, demonstrate your logic, and know your data really well.

One of the best strategies to win them over in the Q&A session is not to give away all the details during the pitch. If you’ve exhausted all your data, you won’t have any left to serve as answers.

Dig deep and have as much data as you can about your market, competitors, and projections. Also, try to anticipate tough questions and foreseeable objections.

Present your pitch deck to a few knowledgeable friends before you take it to any competition. Have them ask you questions. The hardest they can think of.

Also, ask them to identify the weakest points of your presentation. Often, these are the areas where you need to do more research or think harder about strategies and solutions to problems.

Don’t believe me? The pitch below starts off great until the presenter elegantly crashes during the Q&A session right around 9:58.

Not Knowing Your KPI Metrics, or Not Expressing Them Right

Judges and investors want Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that indicate how effectively your startup can achieve business objectives.

There are lots of KPIs around. You should focus on the ones that really matter for the startup pitch competition and your particular business. Judges and investors don’t need all your KPIs to figure out whether your startup has a chance or not.

Once you have your KPIs, mention only the key ones. You need to know and understand them all, but during a startup pitch competition, there’s not enough time for going through them all.

Use charts, graphs, and visual elements to present your metrics in a simple, clear, and compelling way. When investors or judges want to learn more about a metric, they’ll ask.

Calculating Expected Returns for Investors

Many participants in a startup pitch competition make this mistake. They think that they will impress investors. But it’s hard to get the numbers right in the early life of a startup.

Give them a big number, and they’ll destroy your assumptions with tough questions you can’t answer at this stage. Give them a small number, and you’ll just turn them off.

Investors in a startup pitch competition like to calculate their own expected returns. They do it very carefully, bringing into it their experience — something most startup owners just don’t have.

The bottom line here is simple — don’t spend (too much) time worrying about investor returns. Because that’s not something they want you to care about.

A startup pitch competition is about innovative and sustainable business ideas. It’s about giving them a solid startup pitch that catches their attention. Focus on that rather than worrying about investor returns.

Top down Instead of Bottom up Approach to Market Sizing

This is a big one. How you present market size can make a big difference in any startup pitch competition. There are two approaches, and one is a lot better than the other.

The first goes like this… A research firm or other, say, Nielsen, says that X service has a market size of about $25 million. This is okay, but it doesn’t paint the whole picture.

It’s not very inspiring, either, because investors know other businesses are already tapping into this market.

Try the bottom up approach instead… If the target audience for this service is X, and we can attract 10% of them, we’ll deliver the service Y times a month, which means a profit of Z.

With this approach, the numbers will be smaller. You won’t be talking of millions in market size but of thousands in services and profits. It gives startup pitch competition judges and investors more accurate numbers. Therefore, it makes for a more realistic, and implicitly more persuasive, startup pitch.

Another advantage of the bottoms up approach in a startup pitch competition is that it shows them you’ve done your research. If anything, there might be objections with the ratios and proxies you used, which actually is a good sign for you because it shows that they care.

One thing to remember — a startup pitch competition isn’t the place to be vague, broad, or general. You have to be as specific as you can.

Not Talking About the Competition (Enough)

What if you leave out competitors? After all, why should you bother about them? It’s all about your brand, right?

Wrong. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a startup pitch competition.

If you tell them you have no competition, they’ll think two things:

But what if you’ve really done your research for the startup pitch competition? What if there aren’t any direct competitors?

Broaden your horizons. Increase your scope. Penetrate related markets, if you have to. Investors at a startup pitch competition like startups in competitive markets. Because that competition is sure proof that the market is viable.

That doesn’t mean you have to focus too much on your competitors. Just make sure you mention them. It’s a healthy thing to do for your startup.

Getting the Pace Wrong

At a startup pitch competition, you don’t want to give too many details, or too few. You don’t want to rush your pitch or prolong it to the limit of their patience. And you definitely don’t want to run out of time if there is a time limit.

When you attend a startup pitch competition, you have to do more than to present your business idea. You have to hold the attention of your audience. You have to engage them and even entertain them.

That’s a lot to do when you think of the few minutes you usually get for your startup pitch competition. Therefore, the pace and cadence of your pitch are crucial.

Here are some tips that help you get the pace right:

Rehearsing your presentation in front of others before the startup pitch competition makes it perfect.

Here’s a great example:

Not Saving the Best for Last

Whether we’re talking about a small or a big startup pitch competition, the winner is often the pitch that makes the audience enthusiastic.

Look at it this way. Investors have plenty of opportunities for investing their money today. There are plenty of startup pitch competition entries.

But relatively few of them manage to generate enthusiasm. Even if they are financially viable, most entries don’t inspire people to invest in them.

There’s a powerful strategy that can help you do that in a natural and compelling way. It’s something that marketers and storytellers do all the time — saving the best for last.

So give your startup pitch competition entry a conclusion, and make it big. Make your call to action momentous… it doesn’t have to be overly dramatic, but leave an impact.

Finally, make sure you start small. Show your startup pitch deck to smaller investors first. Bring it to smaller competitions, if any are available. This will help you fine-tune it for the big startup pitch competition you go to, the one that can really make all the difference.

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