Presentations can be stressful even when the stakes aren’t high. Pitching your startup in front of investors at a contest can be downright anxiety inducing. So every time an entrepreneur gets up on stage to do it, there’s much to be learned from their pitch.
This week we continue to review a pitch this time by Jesse Garcia CEO of Tozuda.
A good pitch will grab the listener within the first few seconds and hold them for the duration, even while crisply articulating four or five things:
- Who is the customer and what is her problem?
- How important/big is the problem, how many people have it (why should I care?)
- What is your solution and how is it different/better than the alternatives
- How will you make money? Who’ll pay for it and how much will they pay
- Do you have traction/customers and what are the next steps?
| Stage | Script | Effect or Outcome |
| Opening Hook | i want you to imagine if writing a text went from taking you one minute to 20 minutes each, [then] you might feel angered frustrated and frankly depressed as to how inefficient you felt [12 secs] | She engages the audience by directly asking them to do something (imagine) and begins painting a word picture of an if, then scenario |
| Context | I know this because this is how i felt. This is what recovering from a concussion can feel like. “this happened all because my coach didn’t recognize my head injury and let me keep playing in a rugby game 10 years ago [13 secs] | Establishes rapport with the audience as what they imagined is what the speaker experienced. And what made it worse. |
| Problem | “if i would have just known to have stopped i would have gotten the help that i needed and this would have saved me months of suffering” …. “there have been some amazing advances in scientific discoveries in this field with diagnostics & baseline testing but”you still have to stop what you are doing in order to take a test [15 secs] | States the problem namely not stopping what she was doing to have herself tested. And not having an easy way to know that. |
Much like Jessica from Northeastern and Mike from Trova, Jesse Garcia begins with a story—her own experience with an undiagnosed head injury while playing sports.
Though each of them began their stories differently.
- Jessica narrated the tale of a friend’s experience (accompanied by a picture),
- Mike began his with a provocative statement (about how hybrid work kinda sucks),
- Jesse Garcia invited the audience to imagine a scenario that she then revealed as something she’d experienced in real life.
Yet, Jesse too in under 40 seconds engaged the audience, established rapport and clearly stated the problem her company had set out to solve.
Subsequently she went on to
| purpose | script | impact |
| size the problem | 50% of head injuries in 2022 have gone undiagnosed | connect to story – just like mine did |
| who has it | more than just sports it’s in the workplace too | its bigger than we thought |
| sizing workplace problem | struck by incidents are by far the most common type of head injury on the job….costly head injuries cost the US economy 76 billion dollars each year | Its HUGE economic impact |
| stakeholder | each incident can cost an employer hundreds of thousands | employers are hurt too. |
In the wrap up she reintroduces herself, “I’m Jesse Garcia,”
invites interested folks to “come hit me up,”
with a touch of humor and wrap back to the story “…but not on the head!”
Viewer responses
What was most surprising to me was how differently each of the many audiences that I shared it with reacted to Jesse’s story. And nearly all of it had to do with her voice tone and tenor.
The impression that viewers had ranged from:
- “She sounded nervous” which many admitted they’d be too, especially at the beginning
- Other’s felt she was passionate about the problem
- Yet others felt it worked at the beginning but began to grate later
Being the father of two daughters, I posed the question would you feel differently if this was a man who presenting the same script. In other words were their preconceptions of gender influencing their perceptions? Most students felt that wasn’t the case.
Questions to consider
- What was your impression of Jesse’s pitch? Did her voice tone & tenor impact it?
- Jesse had great body language—open, expressive with plenty of hand gestures. Did she move her feet at all? Did that make a difference to you? Did you even notice it?
- Humor is always hard to pull off. Did Jesse attempt humor? And how did it work for her?
Stories are a great way to open your funding pitch. Jesse does a great job in this pitch. It is important to keep in mind that when you tell a story, your listeners are doing more than hearing your words. They are observing your vocal variety and watching your body language and sometimes those speak louder.
