Why Pitch?

Get valuable feedback. Refine your pitch. Meet potential team members. Find investors. Get a jump start on your idea with the Prize. Networking. Networking. Networking.

Why Attend?

Join another team. Play matchmaker. Find an investment. Refine your elevator (60 second) pitch. Networking. Networking. Networking.

Next Pitch:

Coming Soon

Stamford Innovation Center
175 Atlantic St, Stamford, CT

RSVP HERE

Pitch Submission deadline:

Send in your pitch for the Next Pitch

See "Applying to Pitch" below

Got a BIG Idea? 

Every business starts with a pitch.

This is your chance to take it from concept to creation.

There are those that find themselves with the perfect idea for the "next big thing". Among them, many do not have the technical know-how to create something on their own, and others simply do not know where to even begin.

The Pitch

Built in CT Pitch provides you, the aspiring entrepreneur, a unique opportunity to jump start your technology business with a chance to win a full weekend of software development from a team of experts. You are provided a 5 minute slot to present your idea to our panel of angels, investors and entrepreneurs. The panel will first-most provide you valuable feedback, and then pick a winner from the group of presenters for the evening.

The Prize

In addition to valuable feedback from our panel of angels, investors and entrepreneurs, the winner will receive a weekend (Saturday morning to Sunday evening) with:

Applying to Pitch

Interested in pitching your idea to the judges panel at the next Built in CT pitch?  In order to get your 5 minutes of fame:

1. You must be a member of this site. Go create a profile!
2. You must submit your pitch deck by email to pitch@builtinct.org
   

Once you've done the above, we will get back to you ASAP.

NOTE: scheduling preference given first to those who have previously won an audience vote, and then those that have attended a prior event. See Event Format below.

Preparing Your Pitch Deck

A pitch deck is simply a Powerpoint or Keynote deck which clearly articulates a business proposition. We suggest it has two purposes:

1. To share the business as clearly as possible to an audience and,
2. To be a tool for thinking through your proposition. Pitching something while it just an idea and observing how people respond is a powerful way to figure out what a business should be be.

Here is some advice for creating your deck.

Event Format

The format for the evening is:

• 6:30pm - 7:30pm: Registration/Networking / Refreshments
• 7:30pm - 7:35pm: Introduction
• 7:35pm - 8:00pm: Open Audience 60 second oral-only pitches
• 8:00pm - 8:05pm: Audience vote on best 60 second pitch
• 8:05pm - 9:05pm: Pre-selected pitches: 5 min. pitch + 5 min. Q&A
• 9:05pm - 9:15pm: Winner announced
• 9:15pm - 10:00pm: Networking

Judging Criteria

Presenters are primarily judged based on the following 2 criteria:

• Business Model
: The heart of it all. If you haven’t got answers to these questions, you’ve spent too much time on frills & features and need to get back to the basics:
  1. Who is your customer?
  2. What is your core value proposition?
  3. What are your key activities?
  4. What are your revenue streams?
  5. What is your cost structure?
  6. Who/what are your key partners/resources?
  7. What are your distribution channels?
  8. What is your roll-out strategy?
• Customer Validation: 
Have you taken the proper steps to ensure that the people who matter (your future customers) support and reinforce your assumptions? Think of Customer Validation as ‘evidence’ to back up the core structure of your ‘theory’ (your Business Model). The more feedback you gather (quantity), the more this feedback comes from your specific target market (quality), and the more you’re able to actually integrate this feedback into the Business Model and product development (execution), the better.

Judges

Our panel of angels, investors and entrepreneurs can be found here.