Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / GEMS: How To Win Pitch Competitions with Tea Drops founder Sashee Chandran

Transcript

GEMS: How To Win Pitch Competitions with Tea Drops founder Sashee Chandran · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:09
  Something else I read that you were doing, maybe it was around this time, was a lot of pitch competitions to be able to start getting more experience in pitching and getting more kind of dollars coming in the door from different kinds of investors. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about that process and why you decided to go and raise a seed round and take the route of venture capital?
• 0:30
  Yeah. And I think it's a hard decision that everyone has to come to themselves and really ask the question, what type of business do you want to build? Is this going to be a lifestyle business where you just kind of want this to be your baby for maybe the rest of your life or, you know, generationally you pass it on, or do you want to scale this business fast, have potentially an exit? And for me, I wasn't clear initially what that was. So it actually took me a while to figure out if I wanted to take capital in.
• 0:56
  But I think the breaking point for me was realizing that in order to do the business justice, I was going to spend the same amount of time working in it. I was struggling with finding the right talent, not having enough capital for purchasing inventory, for all of these things that I felt raising capital was the right path for me, just for the type of business I want to build, I wanted to build and also to hire A plus talent. And so once I decided that, it was then figuring out, okay, I'm
• 1:21
  How do you even do this? I hadn't even heard of this term angel investor before diving into it. And so a book that really helped me early on was this book called Venture Deals by Brad Feld. And I believe there's another author, but it was a really helpful book to really understand the different financing instruments that exist, whether it's convertible note or an equity raise. What does that mean? And so I had that as a great guide for me.
• 1:44
  But then it was like, OK, where do you find these people called angel investors or institutional investors? And so, you know, you're right that I did enter a lot of pitch competitions. And the rationale there was, A, I felt it would bring a discipline to my business. If you have to pitch your business, that probably means you have to put together slides. You have to really understand the nitty gritty of your business, the finances, et cetera.
• 2:04
  So it forced a discipline. But second that I noticed a lot of the judges at these different pitch competitions were either venture capital funds themselves or notable angel investors. And so I said, well, at minimum, if I even make it to a top 10, like they'll be exposed to my business. And then
• 2:20
  Maybe they know other people that they can introduce me to. So that was the route that I went. And I just started learning more about different networks, like Women Founders Network had a pitch competition. I entered that. Very surprised when we made the top 10. And then we ended up winning that first $20,000. That's first place was a big point of validation. And I'm still one of the judges on that panel, became an institutional investor of ours. And then we entered the Tory Burch Foundation. She has an amazing fellows program.
• 2:48
  And at that point, they also had a similar pitch competition. So we made the top 50, the top 30, the top 10. And then we took home that first place $100,000 investment, as well as two of the judges ended up investing in T-drops. So that is frankly how, without really knowing anyone and having zero connections initially to investors, that's how I started just gaining more exposure for T-drops and garnering investment. Hmm.
• 3:15
  Is there any key takeaways from, you know, learning how to pitch that other people could benefit from hearing? Yeah, and I think the good news is that just like anything or most things, it's
• 3:27
  it's a muscle that you develop. You know, it's not like you're going to be amazing at it first, but it's something that you can learn. And the brilliant thing about all of us as founders is we know our businesses in and out, right? We know the value we're bringing to the world. We know its potential. And so I think being crisp about that, I also went to a pitch coach, if you will, to really help me out.
• 3:52
  My pitch coach, her name is Lisa Elia. You can find her online. She was really great at sitting me down, looking at my initial deck, and being very clear on what was essential to tell my story and what wasn't. So a lot of things, I think founders, because we're so close to it, we think everything's important. Well, this metric's important. Well, this piece is important.
• 4:11
  And I think it's important for someone to really sit you down, a trusted advocate or someone to be like, that's not essential to the story or this metric should be in there. This shouldn't. And to be really truthful about that. So I felt that practice really helped me distill my story and narrative. And then once I had that, then I felt confident that, you know, a lot of these pitch competitions have three minute or five minute cutoff points. And so you really have to work around that.
• 4:36
  communicating everything you can about your brand, your metrics, and where you're headed in that limited time. And having someone like that is a great forcing function. You can do it on your own, but you just have to be very honest about what's essential in that pitch deck, what's not.
• 4:51
  Yeah, that's really interesting. Coach for pitching. I didn't know that was a thing. Sounds great. Well, I didn't know either. But when she made the top 10 on one of the pitch competitions, they automatically gave you a pitch coach. And I just happened to get Lisa, who is just phenomenal and really helping. So it's not that you need one, but I do think you need a truthful friend and or a truthful mentor to really be honest with you when you're pitching. And so I think if you get that feedback, that can really come from a lot of different sources. Totally.
• 5:21
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 5:45
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• 6:08
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