Getting Your Pitch Perfect: Key takeaways from MEST Presents with OZE

9 min readJun 24, 2020

This post was written by MEST’s Head of Community Relations, Lundie Strom, for MEST.

On Tuesday, June 9, MEST was joined by co-founder and CEO of Ghanaian fintech startup OZÉ, Meghan McCormick, for a MEST Presents webinar focused on startup pitch fundamentals and readiness.

Following the announcement of our 2020 MEST Africa Challenge country finalists, more than several of them reached out to 2019 Challenge winner OZÉ to ask for insider tips on what made their pitch successful. In order to help as many founders as possible, Meghan offered to share her advice on how to make a pitch (near) perfect (“there is no such thing as the perfect pitch,” she told us), with the entire MEST community instead.

After Meghan’s presentation, I shed some light on what exactly the MEST Africa Challenge judges are scoring this year’s finalists on (spoiler — the scoring criteria almost directly aligns with the 3–5 minute pitch guidelines below), and then we broke up into peer pitch practice breakout sessions for founders to put some of the things they learned to use.

Keep reading for our top takeaways for what to include in your one, three or five minute pitch, how to respond to questions from investors or judges if you don’t know the exact answer, and how to set your pitch apart from the rest!

Know the time limit (and give yourself some room)

When pitching your business, don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Base the information you include in your pitch on the amount of time you have.

The only way to ensure your audience will get all the information and you won’t get cut off, is to make sure you’re under time consistently — “practicing and getting it under time once does not count.” Remember that everyone reacts to the pressures of presenting differently, so give yourself some room in case you slow down, stutter or stall for a moment.

A one minute pitch, which likely only covers one slide or uses none at all, should include…

Problem — An extremely simple, one-liner explanation of the problem you’re trying to solve
Solution — What your solution is and what it does, but more importantly…
Differentiation — How your product is different from the status quo, or a competitive product out there
Traction — One or two key metrics that stand out the most (we’ve signed X amount of partnerships, we have this MOM growth rate, etc).
Revenue model — How you make money!
Team — Meghan says that because very early-stage startups have few concrete numbers to lean on, your pitch should be as much much about you and your team as much as your product/solution. Why are you the right people to build your solution?
Ask or invitation — Because a one minute pitch is so short, all you’re trying to do here is entice whoever you’re pitching to spend some more time with you to learn more. Ending with something such as “I’d love the opportunity to tell you more!” easily opens up a follow up conversation, if they’re interested.

A three to five minute pitch should include all of the above, PLUS some additional information such as:

Problem — with your additional time you can expand on your problem beyond just a one-liner to include:

Statistics — Key numbers that paint the picture for your audience.
How you know/understand the problem — Rather than waiting until your Team slide to explain how you understand the problem you’re solving, allude to this early on so people know why you’re standing in front of them.
Storytelling — Introducing a customer profile or your affinity to the problem through an anecdote helps your audience relate or empathize on a personal level, early on.

Solution

Differentiation

Financial projections and total adjustable market: “Investors at this stage will never believe what you say you’re going to make in the next year and the next year because nobody knows,” Meghan said. “What they’re trying to grasp with your financials is whether you have a realistic and big enough picture of what growth you’re aiming for.” Essentially, investors want to know if this solution is big enough to be worth their time and money.

Traction

Revenue Model

Team

Ask or invitation

A five to ten minute pitch can include all of the above, PLUS expand on the following:

Problem

Statistics
How you know/understand the problem

Solution

Storytelling
Tech stack — Introduce the underlying tech elements of your product

Differentiation

Competitive landscape — Expand on who else is out there, what are they doing, and how you are doing it better

Customer testimony — What are people saying about your product?

Go-to-market strategy — “Tell me how you can get your product in the hands not of just 10 people, but 10 million.”

Financial projections and total adjustable market

Traction

Revenue Model

Road map — Expand on your journey — where you’ve been, and where you’re going. Explain what research or tests you’ve done and what you’ve learned that will inform the next iteration of your app (“…and THAT’S why we need your money!”).

Know your audience (and make it easy for them)

Consider changing the lead in, length, and level of detail included based on who is in your audience. Depending on who you’re speaking to, you might have to do a certain amount of market and industry education within your pitch, and emphasize the specific information you want them to consider in relation to your business.

Ask yourself:

What do they care about?
How much do they know about your market?
How much do they know about your industry?

“When talking to local investors who will see images relating to my product and know what I’m talking about immediately, that’s where I start. But if I know the people I’m talking to will take a look at me and will say ‘what the heck does this chick know about small business in Africa,’ I use a picture of myself in my early 20s teaching at an African university as a way of saying I’ve been working in the African small business space for a decade.”

Foreign investors will understand your business jargon but still might not know how much opportunity there is on the continent. It is up to you to highlight relevant statistics to help them grasp the possibilities. For example, OZÉ has a loop of slides that they add when pitching to foreign investors that state things such as “the urban internet penetration in Africa is the same as it is in urban China,” or “The smartphone penetration in Ghana is just 1% behind what it is in South Africa.”

Don’t automatically assume your audience will know your target market or industry potential. Practice your pitch to those outside of your team and professional circle — do your family members understand your value proposition? If not, you might need to make adjustments to make it easier for anybody to understand.

Know your numbers (be specific and honest)

Investors say it often — know your numbers! You should be able to rattle off your company’s key financial figures easily, but highlighting honest potential is more important than showing off inflated vanity metrics.

Instead of “our sales are growing fast” → Say “our sales are growing at 25% monthly.”
Instead of saying “we have lots of customers and they really like it” → Say “we surveyed 100 active users and got an NPS (Net Promoter Score) of 74.”
Instead of saying “we get customers for cheap” → Say “our cost of customer acquisition is $0.52.”

Honesty is key here.

“Even if you have a dozen amazing things about your company, if one lie comes out, you’re done.”

And, be careful with showy math! “Saying ‘our customers doubled from February to March’ sounds good,” Meghan told us, “until one savvy investor asks you ‘doubled from what?’ And you have to admit from just 2 to 4.”

When OZÉ was still very early stage, they would sometimes be asked questions about their revenue model, while they were still figuring it out themselves. Meghan would tell potential investors, “Let me be honest with you, we’re at the stage in our business where we’re still working that out — but this is what we’re currently doing to figure it out.” Later-stage investors won’t want to hear this, but early-stage investors care that you have a plan to work through the uncertainties.

And if you’ve been asked a question that you don’t have the answer to or the numbers for off the top of your head? It’s okay to say “I don’t have those numbers for you off the top of my head, but let me follow up for you on that!”

Know your ‘wow’ (and work with what you’ve got)

If your audience can only take away one thing about your company from your pitch — what makes you different, or your ‘wow’ — what do you want it to be? Make it obvious.

“If I can’t guess the most impressive thing about your company from your pitch, you’re doing it wrong.”

Do you have a really amazing team? → Highlight your industry experience or the fact that you’re a second-time founder, or have lived the problem your entire life and are now solving it for yourself.
Are you good at telling a vivid, compelling story that people can relate to? → Get me excited about the problem you’re solving.
Is your growth or traction mind-blowing? → Investors will want to get in on this growth! This also shows your company is becoming more and more expensive to invest in on a daily basis, which ups the urgency.

The same limitations you think count against you — “we haven’t done enough, we’re too early, I’m so young, I don’t look like someone who typically wins these competitions” — might actually be the differentiating factor that makes you and your company exciting or attractive to investors. Play up the things that make you stand out.

Know what comes next (and nail your ending)

Technical challenges happen all the time — especially on the continent. Anticipate and prepare for them. If your photos don’t load, your demo won’t play, or your connection drops altogether, you should still be able to complete your pitch without your slides. Practice until you know your pitch with your eyes closed!

One of the key things that help make Meghan’s pitch sound so polished and seamless is her use of transition sentences when changing from one slide to the next. Every slide transition has a sentence that ties the next slide to the previous one — which makes her sound like she is delivering a compelling speech, rather than just reading off PowerPoint presentations.

“The slide shouldn’t be the cue to switching what you are talking about — the story should.”

This is what helps make your pitch sound polished and fluid.

Finally — tie the end to the beginning. What you finish is what everyone will remember the most — so “reiterate why they should choose and invest in your business!”

Want to see some of the best founders on the continent in action? Join us to watch the over 80 companies from nine different African markets pitch in front of the MEST and Microsoft teams, local judges, and ecosystem partners — for the chance to win $50k in equity investment and the opportunity to join MEST’s African-wide tech startup community!

Read more about OZÉ and our other 2019 Challenge winners here.