How to pitch an idea and reach the stars?

One good thing about finding a company is that you get to do whatever you want. You don’t have a boss breathing behind your neck. Instead, you get to be your own boss. But to start, you need to have a business idea and learn how to pitch and sell your idea.

When I was studying and doing my bachelor’s degree, I didn’t have a clue on what to do after graduating. I had some ideas, on what to do if I’d become an entrepreneur, but the idea of being one was somewhat scary to me. Still, I tried to face my fears and start my entrepreneur’s life. The problem was just that I didn’t have a platform or space, where to get my ideas aloud and get feedback for them. I would have loved to belong in a culture with supports entrepreneurship.

Just before the summer, I had a possibility to witness a culture, which supported entrepreneurship in Startup Connect Kick-Off and Innocamp programs, which were held in Kouvola and in Kotka. In there, students from South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Xamk) and from ITMO University, St Petersburgh met together and formed teams in which they found solutions for problems, which real-life companies had given them.

It was fascinating to see the results when the classroom was filled with open-minded students, who love to learn and share their ideas aloud. The students there got to experience a little on what startup life is like. They got to learn how to start from a business idea and how to pitch and sell their ideas and make it a startup.

The journey of the startup

Startup culture according to Lauri Järvilehto (2018) supports ideating, self-determination and building new things. While bigger organizations still focus a lot on preventing mistakes and developing the organization with small steps, startups are reaching towards stars. This was what the teachers in Kick-Off and Innocamp taught for the students.

Järvilehto says that startup isn’t a pursuit towards a certain goal, but more like a research journey with the outcome that no one had even thought of in the beginning. He expresses the journey of the startup with a pyramid, which starts from the idea – the mission in the bottom asking:

The mission – Why are we doing this?

The strategy – What are we going to do?

The tactics and the process – How are we going to do what we do?

The vision – What is the outcome of our work?

As I mentioned earlier, the students at our camps got to learn the basics of how to pitch their ideas. Järvilehto (2018) tells about pitching that its main focus is to tell in a compact way, what is the business idea, why should people interest in it, why should investors invest in it, why should people buy it, and why should people work with you with that idea.

This is a very beneficial exercise even for a future working life, since I think we need to pitch something every day. I, for example, could pitch this camp, which we had for students or teachers and this text, which I wrote here is a long script of my pitch. If you got interested in this and you would know a person who would benefit from a camp like this, let me know.

Check out more from a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLEIQmc60qs&list=PLXswRRyb1mzrMomwBfxrewVBeYyaMXayM&index=6

Sources:

Järvilehto, Lauri 2018. Kiitorata Startup-maailman molemmat puolet. Kustannusosakeyhtiö Tammi