The plan I pitched to STARTech WAS unfundable. I didn’t have a clue how to pitch. I didn’t have the answers investors were looking for. It took me 100 pitches to learn how to do pitch (I can be a slow learner sometimes). By the time I was ready the STARTech guys were interested, too bad they couldn’t have helped me ‘perfect my pitch’ 99 pitches earlier. There is a need for a group to help entrepreneurs ‘perfect their pitches’ in Dallas. Ironically the North Texas investment community is already helping entrepreneurs ‘perfect their pitches’ without realizing it. The only problem is that investors outside of Dallas are getting the fruit of that work. While we turn up our noses at naive and inexperienced entrepreneurs pitching their startups those same entrepreneurs are learning from their mistakes. By the time they run out of investors to pitch right here in our own backyard their pitches are getting pretty good. Of course there are even more entrepreneurs who simply give up, who don’t get on a plane and keep trying. They, wrongly, assume that it must be their deal that is bad, when it is really the market.
What if we had an angel group that instead of spending time on the frontend ’screening’ out the bad/unfundable startups, they spent time helping entrepreneurs learn how to pitch their ideas to investors? What if that were the ONLY cost of admission? My goal with the SpringStage angel/entrepreneur group is to become the FIRST place entrepreneurs from North Texas come. You may not raise the money you need, but hopefully you will learn the skills necessary to raise it right here in our backyard. I am holding our first organizational meeting on Monday at 4PM. If you are interested in helping build a more friendly entrepreneurial community in Dallas I invite you to attend.
