The Innovative Academy held its final mentoring session at the Eastparc Hotel, Yogyakarta (05/15). The topic of this session was Pitching and Fundraising. Innovative Academy chose this topic to prepare participants for the incubation event, Demo Day. The morning session began with a presentation by Denny Wijayanto, S.E., Head of Program at Innovative Academy, who shared his experiences in pitching according to the target audience.
Before diving into pitching material, Denny explained, “There are various types of funders such as investors, donors, governments, and individuals, so you need to know who your target audience is because each funder has its own characteristics.”
This mentoring session focused on investors who naturally want to know several things before investing their funds. “First, they want to know what problem is being solved and what solution is being offered. Second, investors want to know if the startup has the right target market for their product and if they know how to acquire it. Third, investors want to know who the competitors are and what differentiates the startup’s product from competitors’ products, allowing it to win the market. Participants can use a positioning quadrant to assess their product’s position in the market,” he explained.
In pitching, participants need to have the understanding and ability to explain their product’s solution simply. Therefore, Denny provided tips on explaining the product by giving examples of services to elderly people to see if they understand the product being explained.
Denny added, “Show a picture of yourself and include contact information during the pitching session. Additionally, it is important to update social media because investors often check the activeness of startup founders on various platforms such as Instagram or LinkedIn.”
In this session, Denny included some motivational words to boost participants’ enthusiasm as they are the chosen ones who have the extraordinary opportunity to be part of this mentoring activity. The session wrapped up with enthusiastic Q&A from the participants despite the limited remaining time.
After the pitching and fundraising presentation, the session continued with pitching practice. Each group received feedback and suggestions on their presentations. Denny provided a comprehensive evaluation regarding the lack of data sources used, the flow in the pitch deck slides, the spelling of numbers in English, and consistency in presentations. (Writer: PU Team/Photos: IA Documentation).