Final Pitch Video requirements
In the pitch to a panel of experts — who are serving as “angel investors” — and your classmates, you have two and a half to three minutes to explain and sell your product. You should strive to be clear, animated and convincing.
You are welcome to make your video any way you can — you can use slides, illustrations, video clips and photographs — or some combination of any of these. Think about what makes for compelling presentations — it usually doesn’t involve slides with a lot of text. Instead, the types of presentations and videos that sell are far more often highly visual and engaging, bringing key facts, ideas and numbers to life for the audience.
We can’t give you an outline or example for this because it’s never been done before! Usually students present a pitch in person, but we can’t do that this semester. That means you have to strike out on your own to figure out how to do this.
Export the video to .mp4 format and upload it to a Box folder. Your video should be 2½ to 3 minutes long. The time limit of three minutes is a hard limit.
We see a variety of approaches to these pitches, and one of the pitch team’s most important job is deciding on the best approach for your group. Some of what we’ve seen in the past:
- full pitch team divvies up the video equally
- team picks a subset of two people to focus on the video
- use screenshots of aspects of the site and embed those in slides
Pay attention to all elements of your pitch across all of the pitchers.
- Are you at the same volume and energy levels?
- Have you focused on clarity in your points?
You’ll get feedback on your pitch videos from the angel investors, and your classmates will vote for their favorite.
Some advice from people who have pitched in the real world:
Richard Branson: How to pitch in 5 steps
Students create magazines from scratch – and pitch them to pros
14 pitch pointers for young entrepreneurs
Pitch perfect: Selling startups at entrepreneurship boot camp
How to use hackathons to build your entrepreneurial teaching chops