There’s nothing like a memorable sales pitch. And we were lucky enough to see eight of them as another successful Lean In EU women entrepreneurs event went down at the Starttech Ventures’ HQ in Athens on Thursday.
Eight startups went head-to-head on stage in the 2nd Pitching Battles event to compete for a ticket to the Grand Final in Italy this coming December, as well as prizes of mentoring, training and lean Venture Building services from Starttech. The acceleration period will consist of bi-weekly calls, guidance on how to use Lean Canvas, how to set actionable metrics, and how to master build-measure-learn cycles.
The Pitching Battles winners
The competition was as exciting as anticipated, but also extremely tough. Just like the first event back in February, it was a close call, but finally our panel of experts came to the following decision on the three winners:
1st place: ΑΓΩ
Augmented Reality system aiming to train people struggling with phobias overcome them by facing them in a virtual but realistic world.
2nd prize: Pakia
A complete InsurTech software solution for insurance brokers and agents
3rd prize: Community Energy River
A FinTech platform that groups efficiently individuals and companies into energy cooperatives and facilitates them to buy, produce and sell their own renewable energy on local level.
Women entrepreneurs shine on
The Lean In EU WBA movement is all about putting women entrepreneurs and investors in the spotlight. And, all involved in the Pitching Battles event were able to enjoy an eye-opening experience. It was an eventful and insightful day of presentations, pitching, discussions and networking. Our grand jury, featuring some of European business angels’ finest female minds, were clearly impressed by the standard of startups.
What did we and the participants learn?
There were plenty of learnings for all. They key thing for most, if not all, of those involved in pitching their fledgling businesses and ideas is that they discovered a lot about how to make the perfect pitch to investors.
Business model beats product
Above all, this means keeping it short, focused and very sweet. Sweet in that it is essential to make sure you include the key details of your business model. And why it will work and/or is working! In other words, don’t focus on your product, but your reason for creating that product. The why. After that, make sure you include evidence to suggest that it can bring in revenue and scale up.
For us, what really stood out once again was the work ethic of all participants. Both beforehand in terms of their planning and creation phase of their products, as well as their pitches. Being an entrepreneur and attempting to create a business model from an idea is no mean feat. It takes a lot of hard work. Many forget about this, getting overwhelmed with the excitement of simply being an entrepreneur. But as we always like to point out, “Entrepreneurship is not the goal, its what you need to do to achieve your goal.”
Conclusion
You can follow the fortunes of the Lean In EU WBA Pitching Battles competition here. We are delighted to be a part of what is a high impact and exciting campaign to highlight the rise and rise of women entrepreneurs around Europe and beyond. Roll on the Grand Final!
