Category Archives: pitching

Events, pitching, startup

The 2nd Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals is a Success!

A record +1.000 audience at the Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals 2016 in buibui Bilk, Düsseldorf

The Rheinland Pitch is Germany’s largest continuously running startup pitching event since 2013. It’s a monthly startup pitching event, where regional startups in all phases are invited to apply. The selected startups (usually 7-12 per month) receive a full day of pitch coaching and help with their pitch decks for free (by me), pitching their results at the end of  the day. From those pitches we select the three best to put on stage a week later, in the evening on the last Monday of the month, in front of an audience of press, media, investors, students, entrepreneurs and the general public that selects the best pitch by public voting.

When Lorenz of STARTPLATZ (right) and I started with the Rheinland Pitch back in 2013, we never imagined it would become this big

Every six months, we have a best-of-the-best finals where the winners from the last preceding months are put on an even larger stage at an even larger event. At these events we also have an expert jury that counts for 50% of the votes. We call this the Rheinland Pitch Summer & Winter Finals.

Yesterday saw the second ever Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals (the first was also spectacular). And what an incredible finals it was! A record +1.000 audience came to see three best-of-the-best regional together with one wildcard winner pitch in front of the lord mayor of Düsseldorf and a top notch jury of experts.

Yours truly moderating at the Rheinland Pitch finals

 

The Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel, was in the house – opening with some choice words about why startups are important

 

The 3rd place went to RadBonus (left) and Rise Technologies (right) shared the 3rd place.

 

Share DNC took 2nd place.

 

And the winner was Düsseldorf’s own Volunteer World!

You can find more images from the event here. (All images by Karina Vilenskaja, ©Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf)

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Education, entrepreneurship, pitching, startup

How to Pitch Your Startup

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Yours truly live on stage at LeWeb in Paris pitching “Gauss - The People Magnet” (Image CC @francois_tancre)

How to Pitch Your Startup

I see a lot of startup pitches and pitch decks. And most of them suck. So let me share some basic knowledge to help you avoid my rookie mistakes and to help you massively improve your pitch so that when you potentially try to secure either something similar to small business loans in Orlando or before you reach out to investors, to start raising that funding round you have something more solid to present. It’s so important to clearly explain your business and its goals. You should also mention who your target market is. This will allow investors to understand the sort of demographic that you’ll be appealing to, allowing them to work out whether or not there is a gap for this business. Once a business has worked out who the target market is, they’ll be able to engage in personalized marketing. This can build customer loyalty and trust, whilst also increasing sales. Perhaps businesses should find more online about personalized marketing. It could be impressive for investors.

(If you like this post, you’ll probably love the much more in-depth Pitching Masterclass.)

There are actually three pitches you need to master. Read on to master them all.

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Education, Events, pitching

Rheinland Pitch Winter Finals 2015 in Cologne

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And the winner is…

Yesterday saw the first ever winter finals of the Rheinland Pitch event series – and a spectacular success it was!

The Rheinland Pitch is a monthly startup event where regional startups receive professional pitch training and a stage to present themselves to investors, media and the general public – for free. I’ve been involved from the start in April 2013 and thus far I have trained over 270 startups to pitch – and counting!

Once in a while we pick the best of the best to pitch in a grand finals. This summer the first ever Rheinland Pitch finals took place in Düsseldorf and was a rip roaring success and we were very excited to bring the finals to Cologne, hosted by the wonderful Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

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Quiet before the storm – The foyer of our awesome venue, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne

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Education, entrepreneurship, pitching

Coaching Startups to Pitch – At the Avatech accelerator in Tehran, Iran!

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Avatech – One of the very first tech startup accelerators in Tehran, Iran

Avatech is a 6 months startup accelerator program that provides entrepreneurs with the necessary ingredients to succeed. We provide aspiring entrepreneurs with mentorship, entrepreneurial training, seed funding and a creative workspace for a period of 6 months. We prepare the teams to get in front of more than a hundred accredited investors to expose their product and receive funding to grow their businesses. – Avatech.ir

As you might already know, I was recently invited to Iran to lecture at the QIAU university and facilitate the world’s largest Startup Weekend event.

Additionally, I’m also here to help my friend Sara Usinger, program manager of one of the very first tech startup accelerators in Tehran, Iran named Avatech, coaching their first cohort on how to pitch properly.

UPDATE: Check this video from Avatech out!

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