What’s a pitch fest?

You might well ask what the heck a pitch fest might be.

Easy definition? A competition for entrepreneurs.

Curious about entrepreneurial jargon? More explained below but let’s get the facts out of the way first!

When will Transformative Tech Queensland (TTQ) and Startup and Innovation Tablelands (ST) hold their first joint pitchfest? Wednesday 25 August at 6 pm to 8 pm AEST, that’s when!

Where will it be held? Online! It’s hard to depend on COVID to play nice so we decided it best to hold this event online.

Who will pitch? Several rising stars of the Trans Tech crowd have been sharpening their skills with uber coaches, Troy Haines and Anuraj Gambhir.

What will they pitch? What’s the theme? All competitors focus on uplifting programs that promote transformation, whether in health, wellbeing, productivity or thriving.

Who should attend? A short list:

• Developers of transformative products/programs that deal with health, wellbeing, mental balance, and expansion into abundance, however you want to define that hard to pin down word.
• Any entrepreneur who wants to sharpen pitch skills.
• Any potential entrepreneur who has a bright idea but few clues about how to operationalise that idea.
• Those who want or need more information on what transformative technologies in general have to offer consumers that can help them with creating their best selves.
• The curious!

Need more info?

And what happened to that bit about what the heck a pitchfest is and why it isn’t just called a tournament? Here it comes:

The enormous entrepreneurial segment of business started with a small group of explorers. Pioneers often feel a bit lonely and there is a tendency for such groups, or any group of adventurers with a strong identity but not many members, to develop their own lingo. The startup movement had already generated its own colloquial speak well before most of us even had heard a whisper of the amazing wave of technological innovation that has altered business, and then our world, irrevocably.

Those extremely cool, and often increasingly well-heeled, entrepreneurs invented or appropriated endless numbers of expressions:

• Lean Business Methodology and Lean Startups: prove business concept as inexpensively and, therefore, quickly as possible before seeking investment. Enabled by invention of internet. Theleanstartup.com.
• Pivot = Change directions as a company
• MVP = Minimum Viable Product: the sparest version or prototype necessary to hit proof of concept.
• Pitch Deck: super-slim (approx. 10-slides) power point presentation that covers all aspects of your business in a concise and compelling way. (Yes, this is a pitch for attending our PitchFest!) There is a real art and science to creating a pitch to convince investors to invest.
• Disruptive Technology = Something that completely changes the way society does something (e.g. Uber/Lyft vs. Taxis or Amazon vs. in-store shopping)
• Launch = start a company or take a website live.
• Boot-Strapping = Using your savings (however meagre) and friends/ family cash to get an enterprise started.
• Sweat Equity = Shares of your company given in exchange for work done.
• Burn rate or Runway: how long you can hold out with your presumably boot-strapped cash before you crash.
• B-to-B = Business to Business. Your company sells things to other companies.
• B-to-C = Business to Consumer. Retail.
• Accelerator (aka Incubator) = center (or “Hub”)where start-ups are “encouraged (incubated) through mentorship, space and sometimes cash.
• Scaleable = able to expand because the market and demand is big enough or because of moves into different markets via Pivoting or Iterating (see above).
• VC=venture capital. What you may need to scale once your process or product has a foothold in the market. Often the point of a pitchfest is to attract venture capital.

If you are a newbie to entrepreneurship, feel free to bring this little glossary to our PitchFest for the transformative technology sector. Better to bring a cheat sheet than to feel you can’t even grasp the words that are being bantered about from judges, those pitching, and the questioners in the audience! Don’t be afraid to just use simple English—once in the entrepreneurial slipstream, you will easily acquire the lingo!