As we (Cooleaf) have continued to grow as a company, we have come across more opportunities to pitch and compete for recognition and cash. On the surface, these types of events may seem appealing and attractive to spend time on. For example, thinking about the PR (Public Relations) that we may get from winning a pitch competition among other startup companies is attractive. The reality is though that there is only one winner and the odds aren’t in your favor. Even if you did win, you could question the real ROI from the press that you would get anyway.

I’m not knocking pitch events. They keep the blood flowing in the startup community. We participate in them and will continue to do so. However, there is another purpose for spending time on these events.

I would like to suggest that the real value is the spark and sense of urgency that comes from getting ready for a big pitch event. For example, Cooleaf entered into the Tech Cocktail startup pitch competition. We ended up winning the Atlanta event and got invited to compete at the national conference in Las Vegas. This gave us the push to get several things done such as a rebranding of our logo, website, and new product demo.

We had less than two weeks to get a new marketing home page designed, developed, and implemented, a new logo, shirts made, business cards, and a pitch of the new product that we had been designing. We got it all done. I don’t think it would have happened unless we had a hard deadline to get it done by.

The value of a pitch competition has the potential of some great PR but regardless, there is the drive to get things done in preparation for the event which is the biggest value you can get.

Below is a video of the pitch competition we participated in at Vegas for the Tech Cocktail conference. We didn’t win but we got a lot done!