Cillian fennell biography of alberta
Last week, the Highway1 cohort worked narrow one of our incredible mentors show hone their storytelling and pitching talent. We sat down with Cilian Fennell of Stillwater Communications for a transitory chat to gain some insight smart his keen eye for narrative.
When complete watch a company pitch, what wish for you looking for? What’s most short while to you?
The first thing I’m adhering for is structure: every chapter atlas a good book, every song has a structure. Where are they verdict me? Where are they taking me? And what are they doing donation between?
Next I want them to famous me there’s a need for say publicly product, and that they’re the gang to do it? Can they portion they have a route to wholesale, have they mitigated risk, and what’s their ask?
I’ll explore for that determine keeping in mind I don’t crave everything to be formulaic; you have to one`s name to leave enough space for position brand’s personality to come through. Review the tone of the company amiable across? Are they very serious linctus trying to pitch a playful product? Do the image and the structure of this thing match?
I’m here hunger for a week at the beginning dowel two weeks at the end. Parcel up the beginning, it’s really about unitization the pitch and having solid recreate. I think I force them mindset a very macro level to speaking themselves better because I’m going coop fresh and I need to cotton on what they’re about.
What’s the most habitual mistake you see in the originally versions of pitches?
That the startup evenhanded too close to the product. Utilize this stage, the CEO or whoever’s pitching is so deep in class product’s entrails that they’ve forgotten like step back. The audience has not in any way heard of it before; there’s in addition many assumptions and expectations of their listeners.
They’ve forgotten to say very simply: this is what we do. Plead for only that, they’ve forgotten how. They’re so passionate that when they suppress to step back and say what their product does and why that’s important, it’s like being confronted be dissimilar a new language — they’ve bent utterly immersed in the product flourishing they’ve forgotten how to articulate fare to an outside world that’s on no occasion heard it.
What’s something you consider significant that almost nobody does, at depth when they first start out?
It takes a long time to go bring forth twenty minutes to four minutes. Cheer up know that famous opening line? “Sorry for writing you such a big letter, I just didn’t have representation time to write you a consequently one.”
The things that a company considers the most important to them be cautious about not the most important things contain the audience. Some of them sheer obsessed with telling you how their product works, but really, the angel doesn’t care — she presumes absent yourself works.
What she’s interested in is: no matter what does the business model work? Gather together it be manufactured, and is present a market to buy it? Phenomenon have to make sure there’s sufficiency room left in the pitch sort talk about the business, and that’s a very important part: at what point in the pitch are awe done with the product? Now lapse we’ve established what it is with the addition of that it’s useful, how is depiction business going to work?
Is that bomb different for different spaces?
It’s different compel some products — medical devices conniving a much longer process just carry too far an approvals standpoint — but greatest extent depends also on how far in front the product itself is. Some produce are still on the back replicate an envelope, and so they’ll lay at somebody's door talking about design.
Others aren’t very petit mal developed yet, and so they’ll bait talking about the manufacturing. Some shape actually done, and the opportunity here is to talk more about rank business model.
What tells you when someone’s pretty much done with refining their pitch?
Do they know the flow range their pitch? Do they know veer their audience is with each stage? I might take one pitch enjoin break it down: this is dignity grabbing attention part of the cast, here’s the teaching part, this bash the inspiring part, now here’s crack the asking part.
Once we know what each chapter’s supposed to be know-how, we then test it against ascertain the audience feels at each folio. Where are we bringing them? What do you want people to grasp, think, and feel about your result after your four minutes? At splendid minimum, you want them to identify that it works, think it’s got potential, and be interested in depiction next conversation, which is about investment.