#FailPitch #StartupStruggles #PitchNightmare
Hey guys, can I get an F in the chat please? 🙈 Just bombed the most important pitch of my life and I’m feeling all sorts of embarrassed right now.
So, I turned a ten minute pitch into a five minute disaster and now I might have missed out on some much-needed funding. Has anyone else experienced this kind of nightmare before? How did you handle it?
Here are some possible next steps and corrective actions to consider:
– Take a deep breath and regroup
– Reach out to the investors for a follow-up meeting to clarify your points
– Practice, practice, practice for the next opportunity
– Seek feedback from mentors or other entrepreneurs for advice
Let’s turn this fail into a learning experience together! 💪 #SupportingEntrepreneurs #LearningFromFailure
Happens to everybody, from time to time. All you can do is get back up, and get back in.
And don’t beat yourself up too much…everybody blows a pitch now and then, and it’s usually not even as bad as we think it is in the moment.
Happens all the time. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If they pass on you because you chocked even though you have a solid deck, product, team or biz in general, then you dodged a bullet.
Sometimes the more you try the worse results, especially when it comes to public speaking, presentations etc. Like others said: it happens alle the time, experienced few 10+ times during my 20+years of career 😉 Move on, it’s gonna be OK 😉
It’s probably just the super rough life event, we all fuck up pitches, just part of the learning experience. Best thing to do is get more pipeline – don’t matter if you fuck up one if you have another ten to do next.
This exact thing happened to me last week. Investor call with 40 participants. I did exactly what you did: panicked and rushed a 15 min pitch in about 8, glossing over important points. It was a viscous cycle as the worse it got, the more I wanted to finish, so the more I rushed. I was kicking myself for the next day or two.
As others have said, the audience certainly won’t have noticed all the things you did, and I’m sure it was better than you felt afterwards. Nothing to do but get back up and go again, that’s the nature of it 🙂
F, it happens though. Follow up over email and keep the door open
Also there is no such thing as compartmentalized super rough life event. Stuff always spills over. Don’t beat yourself up.
F. Hang in there man. Happens to the best of us.
It happens, keep going
Can I have their contact info to pitch them?
You’ll probably get the funding, further adding to your confusion.
Part of the game bro. Take it in stride and keep going. It won’t be the last time, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all about how many hits you can take without quitting
Keep going. Calm yourself.
It happens to the all. Nerves can make us do crazy things.
Its also difficult to learn from this as nerves hit whatever preparation we have done.
Hope you calm down.
worst pitch in your life *so far*
Sorry that happened. Keep moving forward – you’ll get the funding you need.
F
It happens.
The first time we pitched, I completely fumbled it. Was running a real estate company that made rentals easier…and I ended up going on a rant about how people could garden and go outside before running out of time. It was a completely disaster.
We (obviously) didn’t get any money, but did raise over $1M a few months later in a very competitive round. Now its just a funny story, though my (former) cofounder does still tease me about it from time to time :P.
Focus on building a great company, and quickly forget about the fuckups. If you build something users want, the money will come.
Keep in mind that they don’t know what they didn’t hear, which can be good or bad. If you still gave enough info to pique their interest they will follow up with questions and you will be the only one to know what you skipped…good.
If you think you really trashed the presentation and it was obvious to everyone, you simply come clean and tell them, “Hey we are very interested in you as an investor and I feel like I had an off day presenting, I would love to have a brief followup call to highlight a few points that I neglected.” If they have any interest at all, hopefully they will take you up on the followup, which respecting their time, you will keep brief. It can literally be a phone call since they have the deck…no need to set up a big scheduled Zoom/Teams presentation again.
And sorry about the life event that precipitated this, hope things are better today. Take it from an old guy, many things that are huge in the moment, are less so down the road…stay in the game…think about the future, work in the present and don’t get too hung up with the past. Good luck.
Gotta roll with the punches
we dont know if its a bad thing. they could have been weirdos. getting money might be the worst thing in the world for you right now. it may open teh door to a different better thing. surrender control!