Entrepreneurship Hub

Pitch Presentation Guidelines

Pitch Presentation Guidelines

Information about Pitch Presentations

Pitching your idea to seek seed funding and investor support is often an integral part of the work that a founder and co-founder do. This is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions for you to consider as you prepare for your pitch presentation.

Is the Bentley E-Hub Incubator Program similar to or different from other Incubators?

The program is similar to other Incubators:

  • The program provides access to seed funds
  • The program provides access to mentoring
  • The program provides access to additional resources
 The program is different from other incubators:
  • The program does not seek equity in your startup, unlike a typical business incubator. However, the seed funding must be used responsibly—fund allocation for each phase is provided in installments and requires spending reports. For more details click here.

The program is also different, Uniquely Bentley:

  • The team lead must be a Bentley community member
  • The team may pitch in the following categories (and indicate so)

What should your Pitch Presentation convey?

1. Your pitch presentation is not the same as a class presentation

2. You are competing against other teams for a limited pot of money

3. So, even if your pitch presentation is great, the judges may still rank other presentations higher

4. You should communicate three fundamental things:

  • That you have a great idea and you are aware of the competition
  • That you have a great team that is willing to work hard to build the business
  • That you have a great plan of action, and you are ready to execute

5. You are letting the judges and investors feel that:

  • They can trust you to use the seed funds well to develop your venture
  • You really know your ideas well and are ready to answer any questions
  • Your team is dedicated to growing the business venture further

What should a Pitch Presentation contain?

1. Pitch presentations vary during the entrepreneurship journey

2. In the early stages, you may focus on the problem statement and idea

3. As the business matures, you may focus on scale, growth and other concerns (which the judges are made aware of)

Templates:
For the Bentley E-Hub Incubator Program, please use the following templates:

You can download the PowerPoint presentation and edit.

How do I build the Ideas that will go into the Pitch Presentation?

You will build a lot more than what your pitch presentation can contain. One way to build your ideas is to draw on the AI capabilities in the MIT Orbit Platform. The Orbit Platform is available to the Bentley community as a resource. You can do several things with the platform including, but not limited to:

  • Understanding the market potential
  • Assessing the beachhead market
  • Developing personas for your customers
  • Charting your competitive position
  • Estimating customer lifetime value
  • Estimating cost of customer acquisition
  • And much, much more (this is your ChatGPT on steroids for entrepreneurship)

How will our ideas be protected in an open pitch presentation?

1. If you prefer to be fully in stealth-mode, you cannot benefit from an Incubator.

2. Asking judges, mentors and attendees to sign an NDA is not an option.

3. However, our mentors and judges adhere to an honest broker policy, meaning they are here to help and do not seek a financial stake in your idea.

4. That means they are here to help and do not seek to obtain a financial stake.

5. Some entrepreneurs can do this if they have financing and mentors available to them.

6. Most others will choose to pitch to access seed funds/mentoring/other resources.

7. And finally, as investors say: "Ideas are many - it is the implementation that counts."

How do I best prepare for the actual presentation?

1. There are three important things (remember, you have only so many minutes)

     Practice 
     Practice
     Practice

2. You can and should, of course, listen to others pitching (many events in Boston)

3. You can benefit from a large set of resources on the web.

4. And the E-Hub encourages you to reach out to Faculty and Alumni Mentors