Pitching tips to win a free place at MORGO
In case you weren’t already aware, Morgo provides two free places every year at each of our events for the leaders of exciting young companies or for students. Getting one of these is highly competitive!
In my time in venture capital I’ve heard a lot of pitches; the good, the bad and, mostly, the frankly-why-bother. I’ve done my fair share of being on the other side of the fence too: raising venture funds and pitching for partners for Morgo. A lot of different approaches can work. Here are my tips for those of you keen to attend Morgo but who can’t afford it at this stage in your business journey. To win, you have to pitch us!
First, check out what Morgo is so that you know what you’re applying for. Read the website, watch some of the videos – just like you would if you were applying for a job or going after a customer. If you’re not connecting your application to Morgo, we feel disconnected to you and down the list you go…
Second, work out why we would like YOU to come to Morgo. That is what you have that you can pitch us. We won’t pick you randomly, or just because you want to come. You need to make us want YOU to be part of Morgo. We love exciting young companies, so this bit shouldn’t be too hard – just tell us why you/your company are exciting and why we’d love to have you there as part of Morgo.
What could be so hard about that? The strange thing is that most of the applications we get are pretty awful. So a few tips to make it to the top of the pile:
- Make sure you know what Morgo is before you apply
- Remember, you’re trying to make a sale – selling us the desirability of having you at Morgo.
- Tell us what you’re doing and where your company is heading. What does your business do? What’s unique about that? What have you achieved? What validates you - customer numbers, marquee customers, reviews, awesome product? Where are you headed? Key challenges ahead? This is what we love to hear about.
- Tell us how you’re different, why you should win.
- Don’t spend all your time telling us how much you’d like to come to Morgo. When we get your application, we assume that you’ve applied because you want to come. (A little bit of flattery is OK though.)
- Make it easy for us - don’t tell us we can go to your website and figure it all out for ourselves…
- Don’t make your application too long for us to want to read it. A page or two is good.
- Make it a no-brainer for us to choose you!
Applications are open for sponsored places at the next retreat - MORGO 2023 Bay of Islands, to be held Thurs 24th-Fri 26thAugust.
Go for it! Hope to see you there 😊
Jenny
