Report: Meetup #37 - Pitch Night

November is Networking.  To ensure high-contact Meetup #37 contained both a Pitch Night and Speed Networking.  The event marked Silicon Halton's 3-year anniversary!  

What is it?

• 10 pitches by hi tech business owners about real companies, real products.  Each pitch is 1 - 3 minutes long.
• You the audience rank pitches and vote for the best pitch – award and recognition for the best pitch

Importantly, this was an opportunity for the Silicon Halton community to provide the Halton hi-tech businesses with an opportunity to practice delivering their pitch, their value proposition, in a safe, fun atmosphere. The pitchers don’t want to live with the consequences of a poorly framed and delivered pitch at the moment the pitch matters most, and they only get one chance to make your mark. Afterwards, there was time to provide 1:1 feedback.  

We provided an opportunity to generate additional buzz about your company and/or product. You can expect up to 1,500 people will hear about your company / product by the end of Pitch Night - in fact, by the time the event kicked-off, we had over 1700 page views of this (then) annoucement. The pitchers limited themselves to one slide per pitch, which wasl be displayed during their pitch so audience knows your company / product name / logo and Twitter handle, and so they know who they’re voting for.  

This was a double-header event. Preceding this November 13th Pitch Night, is a Pitch Camp Breakfast event on Tuesday November 6th, 2012.  We provided an opportunity where pitchers practiced delivering their pitch, received trusted peer feedback, refine their pitch, and immediately re-delivered it. We providing such an intimate forum for Pitcher to deliver their Unique Value Proposition (UVP), their pitch, their elevator pitch, to a trusted group of your peers, in a safe atmosphere.  

Speed Networking section

After the Pitches, we ran the ever popular Speed Networking, where everyone had 2 minutes total to exchange pitches and make new connections, then rotate to the next pitch exchange.

The Pitchers

The pitchers were (in no particular order). :

1. TheChecker.net. David Lefevre, President & Shawn Macpherson, VP. @shaw1mac
2. AnanCloud.com, Reuben Tozman, Chief Learning Officer @ edCetra Training. @AnanCloud
3. AgentInvitation.com, Don Stewart, Founder, @agentinvitation
4. Qriffic, Sebastian Dwornik, CEO, @Qriffic
5. Salistera, Josh Hagan, CEO. @salistera
6. McMaster’s / Degroote MBA Consulting Group, www.thinkfbc.com (we're always trying to support our local educational institutions!)

Congrats to Sebastian Dwornik of Qriffic for the best pitch.  The Town of Oakville graciously provided wireless electronic scoring devices from turningtechnologies.ca (a Canadian company) for the audience to rank the pitches. We all learned real-time, after the last pitch, who's pitch was voted best.  

This event was powered by the Town of Oakville.  They made the new Queen Ellizabeth Park Community & Cultural Centre (QEP) available to us. QEP is a fabulous new facility in Oakville, a unique multi-purpose recreation, arts and culture facility. We introduced the 75 attendees to QEP.  We hope to return.

Event Snapshot for Your Calendar

Topic: Pitch Night
Target Audience: Technology entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals, educators and students
Meetup Track: Networking: Collaboration, Partnerships, Referrals, and Career Growth
Date & Time: Tuesday, November 13, 2012 @ 7pm
Location:  Black Box room, QE Park Community and Cultural Centre. 2302 Bridge Road, Oakville | Google Map
How much it costs: Nothing but your time.
Pre-Event Q&A Silicon Halton members can participate in a pre-event conversation with the organizers and facilitator in our private Linkedin group. Help them make this meetup relevant to you.