Saturday, December 10, 2011

Beyond the Pitch

Editor's Note: This is an op-ed I did for the Michigan Review following the 1000 Pitches Summit last Saturday.


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Pat Milligan is a member of MPowered on the organizing committee for the 1000 Pitches Summit


True to the spirit of entrepreneurship that MPowered works to promote, we as an organization have launched a multitude of different projects in our short existence thus far. Most have fallen by the wayside. A few worked out well and are still running. But none have achieved the kind of success that we've had with 1000 Pitches. This year is only the fourth time the competition has been held, and two weeks ago at the close of this year's competition, we set an official world record with 3,303 pitches.


It was a fantastic year. But although 1000 Pitches is by far our largest project, we still treat it like a startup, and the question for us every single year is 'how can we improve the experience?' Over the past couple of years, the answer to that question has primarily been 'grow the competition'. We wanted to reach even more students, attract more sponsors and publicity, and promote more creative thinking. And for four consecutive years, we did exactly that, growing from 1000 to over 3300 pitches and generating more excitement each time. While that still remains a goal for future competitions, that is no longer the only one. We are now focusing in on ways to improve the students' experience and provide wider value than just the prize money for the winners.


This year we rolled out the inaugural 1000 Pitches Summit in an effort to expand on that focus. In past competitions, students would submit their pitches, a few winners would be chosen, and that was that. While some participants moved forward with their ideas, most simply moved on and forgot about it. Our primary goal with the Summit was to help get students started on the path to developing their ideas further and remain engaged with the entrepreneurial community and resources that are being built here on campus. To put it more concisely, we want the conclusion of the competition to be the start of building ideas rather than the end.


To do that, three objectives were set. First, we wanted everybody there to meet other people with interest and knowledge in similar fields. Until now, one disadvantage of 1000 Pitches vs other ideas competitions like Entrepalooza is that there was no explicit process for talking to others about your idea, building networks or forming teams. Second, we wanted to help students define the next step to take in the process of building an idea based on where they were at that point. And finally, we wanted everyone to get a start on that next step, just to begin building momentum, even if it's small. To that end, we invited as many outside mentors as we could get a hold of, developed 5 workshops based on difficult but useful skills, and did our best to make the event informal and basically get out of their way.


We don't expect or even want everyone to go out and start a business. It's not feasible and it's not within most students' goals. But we do think there is a lot to be gained by learning to think creatively; and that has to be an ongoing process rather than a one-time step. The real endgame for 1000 Pitches isn't the ideas that are created or the prize money rewarded but rather the experience people get by doing it. A lot of people who pitch in the competition aren't planning it ahead of time - students that are part of groups in the pledge program, students we approach at pitch stations and encourage to pitch, etc. But they are forced to come up with something creative on the spot, and those ideas can be great.


There were a number of people I talked to at the Summit who said that prior to that conference they had never even considered pursuing their idea or becoming an entrepreneur; it was just an idea they recorded one day and forgot about until we named it a semifinalist. That's the kind of value we want to provide going forward. The Summit was just the beginning; we have follow-up events planned next semester, each of which ideally builds off the last. If those help just a few people discover something they're passionate about that they had never thought of before, we will be very happy. If, however, the experience can also help a large number of people think just a little more creatively and see the world in a different light, then this whole project called 1000 Pitches will have been truly successful.