Mary Carty

Reflecting on the Live Pitch at Nordic Game there’s a lot to be excited about. Four companies from the region along with two European companies were selected to pitch. In terms of team make up, it was good to see nearly a 50/50 ratio of males and females. This has to be a very positive development for the industry. Businesses pitched represented games, mobile, apps and platfroms with attention paid to lesser served audiences.

The six finalists were Locatify – Iceland, Megapop – Norway, Lohica – Denmark, Ozma – Sweden, Zoopaheroes – UK and Spitzeljagd – Germany/Estonia. On the day Megapop were the victors with their game Trolls vs Vikings.

Flexing their dragon muscles on the panel with me were, Paul Heydon of Avista and London Venture Partners, Ian Baverstock from Tenshi Ventures, Doug Richard, Dragons Den UK and Justin Stoltzenberg from the European Games Group.

Each pitch was five minutes with seven minutes for panel feedback. Some pitches were flawless coming in under the time allotted, covering every aspect of the business and the finance required. Megapop particularly nailed the pitch with a confident presentation covering all the bases extremely well.

Here are three observations from the day that might help your next pitch.

Three Lessons

1. Pitch your business not your product
This is a common mistake, startups pitch their product, game, app etc, and not thier business. An investor is interested in your business, your business model not the individual products that you make. So pitch your business not your product.

2. Valuation
For others, there was room for improvement especially when it comes to valuation; money required from the investors. It is really important to understnad what you are looking for, what you need the money for, how the investor will get their money back and in what time scale.

3. Team
The other area for more consideration was the team, at what point do you take on more people to help you achieve your goals and what effect will this have on the money you require. If you are outsourcing the production, marketing or coding how much control will you have in the business and should you bring these functions in house?

Finally

When you pitch make sure you cover these 6 areas as well as you can in as few slides as possible. Five minutes ticks by really quickly!

– What problem you have identified
– What is the solution you are putting forward
– Is there a market for your idea/project
– What is the business model you will use
– Who are your team and thrir experience
– What you will do with the money should you get investment

If you cover each one confidently, with backed up numbers and your assumptions tested your pitch will be clear and communicate why you and your business is worth investing in.

Congratulations again to Megapop and all the finalists for pitching on front of such a large crowd. I’m looking forward to next year already.