Pitch Lab Recap, July 5th 2022

Tuesday’s Pitch Lab with Julien Smith (Practice.do) was packed with insights about pitching from someone who’s raised $200M in funding. I’m working on a full recap but wanted to share two snippets:

Your deck should be a “sales enablement tool”

“A good deck facilitates conversation in person but is also excellent at being passed around to other people in a VC partnership. If a partner really likes you, how are they going to talk about you to others?”

I always advocate having one deck that can be both presented and read. I love that Julien is thinking about what’s happening with his story when he’s not in the room. He’s thinking about his pitch deck as a tool to help one partner convince the others to invest, i.e. “sales enablement.”

Don’t try to transmit everything

“Your job in the first meeting is to get them to love you. Your job in subsequent meetings is to get them not to fall out of love with you. I’m not trying to transmit everything.”

Every great pitch is a precarious balance between not enough information, and too much too soon. Include just what’s necessary to get them to love you and ask for another meeting.

Join Pitch Lab Live in Montreal (and Online)

Next Tuesday’s Pitch Lab is in Montreal and we’ll have a live audience as well as our usual Zoom broadcast. I’m really looking forward to seeing people and trying things out in a live setting. You’re all invited. RSVP here: https://practice.do/raymond-luk/book-event/pitch-lab-live-in-montreal