What's the best startup pitch competition to enter?

Abhinauv MBA Enterprise Tech Sales

July 28th, 2016

I am part of the founding team of a progressive internet media publisher startup in the East Bay. We have bootstrapped the company for the past two years and have good traffic now. We're looking to raise funding rounds, but concurrently looking for ways to judge public opinion of our pitch. Would it be a bad idea to pitch at one of the countless meetup pitches if we're ideally looking for somewhere between a seed and Series A type round?

Daniel Turner Interaction Designer, Xerox PARC

July 28th, 2016

If there is a public good component, have you checked out Matter.vc or the CITRIS Foundry? Both are in the Bay Area (SF and Berkeley, respectively).

Kristina Momchilova Senior Media Analyst at iCrossing

July 28th, 2016

Competitions can be good for creating a little buzz around your company in the start up community and some of the judges or people in the audience could be potential investors. I did a bunch of college competitions as a part of a start up and we got validation, constructive feedback, and a little money out of it, which was great. We refined our pitch and were better prepared to answer the reoccurring questions and concerns we encountered. If you have the time for it, I would definitely recommend it.

I just did a quick search and found this

http://grasshopper.com/blog/startup-competition-guide/

See what is applicable to you and go for it.

Abhinauv MBA Enterprise Tech Sales

July 28th, 2016

Interesting idea for sure. Thank you! I'll check these out.

Daniel Turner Interaction Designer, Xerox PARC

July 28th, 2016

East Bay journalist-turned-UX-person, here... good luck.

Abhinauv MBA Enterprise Tech Sales

July 28th, 2016

Great advice, will definitely check it out. Thanks Kristina!

Bill Lennan Red Rope Social - everyone is an influencer.

July 28th, 2016

meetups - there are multiple MeetUps where you can practice your pitch and get in front of investors.

I'd also read Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff and Guy Kawasaki's YouTube videos on pitching to investors.

David Austin Relentless problem solver and innovator.

July 28th, 2016

No such thing as a bad pitching opportunity