RECAP: Founded In Philly Series II Lightning Pitch Night (IRL!)
Thank you to our hosts, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, for providing a safe space to pitch! (Not all founders or investors pictured).
ABOUT PITCH NIGHT
Each accelerator, the cohort looks forward to the Lightning Pitch Night, which is the first ‘official’ PSL pitch in front of a panel of investors. This time, we were able to safely execute a Live pitch night, thanks to our friends at Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA.
The team at Ben was also an asset in helping each founder prepare for their 5-minute pitch. On October 14th, for our first Extracurricular Activity of the cohort, BFTP’s Rick Genzer led a virtual pitch prep workshop and ensured that all of their pre-presentation questions were answered thoroughly.
For this pitch, we asked the cohort to turn their pitch decks in prior to the event, so that the investors would have time to review and get to know a bit about each company before meeting them or hearing them live. Read below for more details about the event.
Supporting judges
For our founders and the PSL team, having an in-person pitch was of the utmost importance. Thank you to these investors who made the journey to the Navy Yard to meet the cohort in person:
Rick Genzer
Ben Franklin Technology Partners
Jason Bannon
Ben Franklin Technology Partners
Brian Slough
Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
Mark Trabbold
Ben Franklin Technology Partners
Nick Valeriano
Robin Hood Ventures
Omar Mencin
Ben Franklin Technology Partners
Matt Johnson
Motivex Solutions
The Feedback
We divided the 8 founders into two rooms for their pitches, and welcomed 2 founders who pitched virtually, via Zoom, to the live audience. Overall, the investors and the PSL team were blown away by the pitches, and the cohort gave the investors/judges a high score as well.
“Each judge understood our product and value prop. Jason took it a step further and wanted to know how it would help his family which was great since it was a plan on our roadmap. Omar's feedback about the B2C downloads being difficult with their portfolio of companies and trying to find a way to leverage the existing customer base was great feedback that we’ll now take back and think about how to execute on.
- Pete Wolk, Grumbl.es
I learned that I need to be more transparent about my why and my background in my pitch.
- Talia Tomarchio
I combined some of the information from this session with Rick from Ben Franklin's session to think through what information do I want to highlight. I also think I realized that I don't need to tell the ENTIRE store during the pitch...just enough to get the audience's interest.
- Xan Hong, OnTrac
I learned that investors think completely different than I do, and that their questions are all based on their work and how it will integrate with mine…I've since spend a lot of time looking at typical investor questions and how to think about them. Of course, there's never a script to follow, but learning about how investors think has helped me think about Just Parent in a more investor friendly way and has helped my pitch come together even more.
- Sara Romano, Just Parent
With the addition of AR functionality, I'm now competing in the AR space and need to do a better job explaining what makes Plynth different.
- Jono Matusky, Plynth
Stay tuned at the end of the cohort for their final pitch, which will be open to the PSL Community. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay informed! If you would like to connect directly with any of our founders, please reach out to engage@phillystartupleaders.org and we will make the introduction.