You need to think of the Start-Up process as a game – you learn the rules, and then try to play to the best of your abilities.
Going through a pre-seed pitch with the NDRC was a good introduction into the world of pitching for investment – the folks we were pitching to were ‘friendly’ – they were the same people (mostly) who had been mentoring us for the last five weeks, and we knew what they were looking for.
Today I am over in London and we are pitching to TechStars. The stakes are higher (we are asking for more money) and what we are walking into is far less well known.
The last few days has been a case of frantically polishing the prototype app ready to demo, and it is now working pretty well. We were planning to do a live demo; but this morning sense prevailed, and I realised that there were so many risk factors that it makes much more sense to record a video of a walk-through. We can always show the app working live afterwards if the panel want real proof.
Presentation in a couple of hours. Wish me luck!