Pitching 101 with Invisiplug

We got to hear Bryan O'Connell (who is one of the founders of Invisiplug in a class session) on how to Pitch to an investor. 

Bryan and Invisiplug's other co-founder, Michael Barzman, were in an episode of Sharktank & Lori Greiner ended up investing in it.

Watching Bryan talk about his experience on Shark Tank gave me my first insights on how Reality TV worked from the perspective of a participant. I was surprised to know that their pitch took well over two hours to film - although, you only see five minutes of it or so on the episode.  (WOW) That's a lot of editing!

I learnt that the most successful pitches are the ones that are clear, concise and simple. The pitches that ended up winning the investor's confidence were the ones that:  

(1) Had a simple product that fulfilled a basic consumer need, made an ordinary task more convenient or in this case an ordinary item more aesthetically pleasing

(2) Had a clear executional idea (looked more favorably upon if they had already begun executing the idea and the product was yielding returns/results)

(3) Had a clear understanding of the funds that are required to get the business growing and profitable and the estimated allocation of the funds

Invisiplug was successful raising capital as they had a simple product and had already started executing their ideas - through partnering with Costco etc and had a clear idea on how to grow their business.

Also learnt from watching this episode and other episodes of Shark Tank : Have a tangible product sample (assuming you are not trying to sell a service) to show/demonstrate to your investors. 

I found this session very helpful in light of the pitch we are about to have at Dollar Shave Club in a few weeks & gave me several insights into what a pitch was and how to pull it off effectively in order to achieve the desired outcome (funding).