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Practice Pitch
​Breakfast
July 13th, 2021

About

Our "Practice Pitch Breakfast" is not a competition. It is a time for entrepreneurs and investors to fellowship, learn from each other and build  relationships with one another no matter where we are located. Join us for our upcoming virtual "breakfast" where you will learn from companies practicing their pitch and gain insight from guest speakers on industry specific topics. Our goal is to come in as strangers and leave as family. 
RSVP for our upcoming Breakfast

Practice Pitch Companies

Investor Feedback

The Rez Rev, LLC
  1. Very nice pitch. I liked the clarity of your slides.
  2. I love your value proposition and how you explain that very clearly – even with the name of your company.
  3. I loved the video testimonials. Video carries so much more than just a quote or a regular survey. Very nice job on that. There is also a wonderful video survey tool that you might want to leverage which is very inexpensive and really cool called Vurvey (Video Survey). I think if you want to gather testimonials, because you are doing video resumes, using video for the surveys and feedback is a really good idea.
  4. It was a really good pitch. Very well presented. It flowed smoothly.
  5. I am a little confused as to what the differentiating factor is with your app and your software. That was not clear to me. As you noted, there is a lot of competition, so you are bold to go out there.
  6. Tell me why your platform is different. 
  7. Is this more advantageous for the person looking for jobs in terms of finding the right job for them? Or is it helping the employers find the right employees?
  8. I loved the presentation and your initial high-level concept – this “offspring” of these two well-known platforms! It was a great way to introduce it and get it in people’s minds.
  9. Recognizing the pain points of both parts of your marketplace platform – really well done.
  10. Do you have revenues yet?
  11. Are you charging for the MVP? You should charge something for the MVP, because you don’t know if you really have a customer until you have someone who is willing to pay for it.
  12. Another thought to consider is to be careful about going after everyone.
  13. You have a unique niche with the GenZ – the audience with the video – especially if you are marketing through TikTok. Get as much traction as you can with the early adopters so you can start building and scaling and then possibly add on other customer segments as you go.
  14. Another thought is that you are looking for $250k, but you do not have revenues and do not really have anything to show what your valuation is. Are you considering also a SAFE or convertible debt as a possible way to capitalize?
  15. I loved the video testimonials about the “Problem” – both from the employer and the employee.
  16. One of the things I look at with these new companies is how they are going to generate revenue and acquire clients. A lot of people focus on their product, but what really is important is who is going to use it and who will pay for it.
  17. I would encourage you to find some way to go out and say, if we build this (when it is ready), get who is going to beta-test it further if there is other testing and sign them up (get commitments). Get letters of interest.
  18. As an investor, the revenue generation is the main thing that I care about is how you are going to make money, how you are going to get to breakeven, how are you going to protect so you don’t have to go out and get more equity (so I don’t get diluted as an investor), and you get to revenue and sustainability as soon as possible.
  19. I see most entrepreneurs trying to get their product right, but they don’t spend nearly enough time on how many users it is going to take to breakeven. If it takes 100,000, 1 M, or 50,000 – then you need to make a list of where they are coming from, so when an investor asks you where you are with your revenue or customer acquisition, you have a very specific plan as well as pre-orders based on if we deliver the product.
Crossup
  1. Nice job. It is very compelling. I understand the industry well.
  2. First of all, I would recommend you hire a slide designer to really pizazz your slides, because a nice design will make it visually much more appealing.
  3. The value proposition is very interesting in terms of your algorithm.
  4. $50M as a pre-money seems quite high, especially since you have not done live trading.
  5. Have you done significant back tests? I would state how clearly you di the back tests and make sure they do not have any bias.
  6. I suspect you will need to do live trading for a period of time before you raise significant AUM. I think the more live trading you do, the more you can get in your pre-money value. Most people would say they want to see a full year of live trading before they would be interested.
  7. I would recommend a timeline of when you developed it, right now we are about to start live trading, etc..
  8. Potentially you would need one friendly investor to give you capital to start the live trading.
  9. You said you wanted to create an investment platform that would bless the poor and then at the end you talked about different audiences. Do you want to raise money and some of the profits will go to these audiences or are there other ways you see your faith being integrated in?
  10. “Business for Mission” vs. “Business as Mission”
  11. I can feel your enthusiasm and passion for the project.
  12. As an investor, I would like to see some live trading and some proof before we go into it.
  13. What is your go-to-market strategy? How are you going to bring these people in? What is your angle?
  14. I would encourage you to find a niche that makes your platform different than nay other algorithm out there. I didn’t understand what your hedge fund or algorithm different from the others.
  15. I have seen and experienced entrepreneurial burnout. You talked about waking up at 6:30am in the morning to go on all night. You want to see this baby start to walk or crawl – I get that! I have seen great ideas that the investor got burned out and it didn’t finish.
  16. As a Christian brother to another Christian brother, I would encourage you to set apart that time or a couple of days to recharge your soul and spirit, because you still have a way to go until this starts moving on its own.
  17. Find a way to get some balance because this is a marathon and not a sprint.
  18. I wanted to address the regulatory environment – how does that work for bringing in smaller investors to your platform?
  19. On your early investor, I would offer no fees to build trading history. Or very little fees.
  20. Your first anchor investor is probably going to be half the fee structure.

Guest Speakers

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Your Thoughts

About The Rez Rev: "I thought the customer testimonials did a good job of communicating the unique pain point that is being addressed. "
About Crossup: "The passion and intellect put into the product is impressive. "
About Wade's Presentation: "Very insightful. Appreciated the detailed examples of unit economics and financials."
About Crossup: "I thought he did a great job. A bit more polish would make it shine."
About Wade's Presentation: "So much excellent content. Real world examples are so valuable, and the opportunity to point out lessons learned (good and bad) from those real world examples is priceless.
About Russ McGuire's Presentation: "It was a good macro review of big business strategy. It was a good story to hear but was it relevant to this group?"
"I left feeling motivated and eager to apply this valuable feedback. Also grateful because a few investors offered to provide us with further feedback outside of the pitch breakfast. We are thrilled!"
About Russ McGuire's Presentation: "So fascinating!! I learned a ton about leadership qualities to emulate as an entrepreneur. I enjoyed the telecommunications founder stories."
"Fantastic! The community that you have created is safe and motivating for faith-driven entrepreneurs to share their passion and feel comfortable getting advice."
About Wade's Presentation: "Excellent slides, lot of knowledge and experience, good recommendations on Do's and Dont's for entrepreneurs. His free offer is outstanding!"
"It was my first time, and I was very pleased. May the Lord bless this format and all people involved abundantly!"

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The Lion's Den DFW is a registered IRC 501(c)(3) Organization pursuant to U.S. tax laws as Impact America, INC. EIN 84-552260.
  • Home
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