The pitch event is dead. Long live the pitch event.
Maybe it sounds terrible to say, but as I look around at events, accelerators, and the general state of entrepreneurial ecosystems in Germany and beyond, I have to say the pitch event is dead.
Or at least it should be.
To be clear from the start, I don't mean pitching is dead or that founders shouldn't take the stage. This skill matters more than ever. What's dead is the format: the long lineup of back-to-back pitches that no one in the room actually wants to sit through.
Investors no longer look to these events to find the best deals. Attendees frequently talk over the pitches and network with one another. Startups are increasingly jaded by the idea of pitching, going through the motions only because their current program requires it.
And let’s be honest, pitch events were never that great to begin with anyway. They may have served a certain purpose at a certain time, but don’t tell me that out of every single pitch event, the winner always raised capital or landed the customers, not to mention was even the best new venture presenting. Historically, pitch events were a nice way to showcase startups and give them visibility. And this is important. Startups must take center stage at startup events (a bit of a no-brainer, no?). But the pitch event as a format has run its course, and in my opinion, it’s all for the better.
I’m not entirely clear on exactly where pitch events started. The Internet and longtime entrepreneurial ecosystem builders state that it began as a result of business plan competitions at a university in Texas. Texas has a lot of great things going for it, but this is one thing I don’t think we need anymore. Of course, accelerators in Silicon Valley and beyond began using such events to showcase startups during demo days, inviting local investors to hear about what the startups had developed over the prior ten weeks. (Perhaps the standard accelerator format is also dying, but that’s the topic of a longer conversation—stay tuned for my upcoming book on the topic.)
Still, the point is, pitch events don’t make much sense. For one, I’ve never seen a perfect pitch land an investor check. Sure, it helps, and sometimes there’s a small cash reward—though in Western Europe I rarely see even that, which is a shame. If you’re going to force founders onto a stage, at least make it competitive and give them a reason to do well. A little extra runway is a strong motivator.
But beyond that, merely pitching, where generally it’s a panel of jurors or perhaps even a community vote, is not really the best way to rank a “good” startup. Especially if the stages, technology verticals, and business models don’t match. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen the winner of a pitch event be a startup that was perhaps the easiest to understand, with the simplest technology that everyone in the crowd could relate to, while a less flashy startup working on a complex industry topic did not win. You can guess which firm had greater long-term business success.
Start with the investors. They don’t truly look to these events anymore. I’ve spoken to many investors in the last few months, asking how they would like to engage with accelerators, and none of them told me they wanted more deal-flow sourcing. Thanks to AI and other insane new data-scraping tools, most investors are aware of new founders before the person even knows they’re a founder. They have screening agents watching LinkedIn, so the second someone changes their title to co-founder or working at a stealth startup, they get notified. In the future, they might even predict when you’re going to form a new company, and how good a fit you are for their portfolio.
There is a tougher truth, though. To find the best founder, you no longer need to be in touch with accelerators. In Germany, there are so many startup programs that it’s difficult to prove that simply graduating and making it to an accelerator’s demo day is a true badge of honor, worthy of an investor’s attention. Sure, there are startup programs that still carry weight. Y Combinator (YC) is still used as a status symbol in pitch decks, and German VCs are always happy to see an UnternehmerTUM (uTUM) alum. But by and large, investors don’t need to attend an accelerator’s pitch event to find the best startups. They already found them, and the remaining startups will reach out to them with cold LinkedIn messages.
It’s not just changes to the investor/accelerator relationship. Founders themselves are increasingly skeptical about pitching at an event. Frequently, they’re being called up and begged to come present with the standard message of “Hey, we helped you once in a startup program. So please come pitch at our event.”
Because there are so many startup programs and activities in Western Europe, I often see program managers from many types of companies (not just mine) looking for good startups to present to visiting delegations. And founders are starting to get tired of it. They feel tokenized, like a commodity being traded around, designed to pitch a cool idea, allure attendees, and give kudos to the acceleration team.
But these founders are fast losing interest in pitching, recognizing the great value of warm introductions OFF stage, and casual conversations with investors and customers. Not to mention, the best way to get an investor’s check isn’t by giving a great stage presentation (though that doesn’t hurt), but by signaling that you have a really awesome company solving real problems with a great team. These founders will find investors, whether or not they pitch at an event.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying startup founders shouldn’t know how to pitch or that it isn’t an important skill. Of course, no questions asked, you MUST know how to pitch your startup, and in a relevant, strong manner. You should know how to talk to investors, customers, regulators, future employees, community members, and political figures. The skill of pitching is not dead. Pitching as the job of founders is not dead. Pitch EVENTs are dead.
For my final point of evidence: consider the audience. Almost everywhere I travel, people increasingly want only to network, creating loud, chaotic environments where founders and organizers feel no one is actually listening to their pitch.
Honestly, what can you expect? The organizers ask startups to give three- to five-minute pitches, then line 15 founders up on a stage. People get bored. They don’t even remember the pitches. They’re attending to network and make useful connections, as are the founders. Instead, everyone’s being forced to pretend to listen and applaud 15 different pitches, all with the same standard ten slides that no one really cares to remember. At one event I attended in Vienna, the networking was so loud that the speaker literally started swearing at the crowd for being too noisy. Don't be the event that pushes your host to that extreme.
So what to do instead? If the pitch event is dead, what can replace it?
I would suggest a few options.
First, just because the pitch event is dead doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put your founders front and center. Give them booths and tables where people can network and hang out. Add them to your event app and display their faces on a screen so people can find them, have a drink, and ask them questions.
If you cannot get rid of the need to have someone pitch, make the pitches happen in 30 seconds, elevator-style. And break it up into chunks so that it’s mostly networking and very little pitching.
For next-level experiences, make the ex-pitch event center on a vertical or industry related to startups, so attendee quality is better aligned, and founders have better experiences, better matches, and stronger networks. Or showcase one or two founders who do a really great pitch and have customer-ready companies, let them do a quick pitch, and have the others do elevator pitches throughout the day.
There are a variety of ways in which you can demo and showcase amazing founders, even if they are “only” the founders graduating from your program. And you can do this while still hosting an event that people enjoy, where networking (liquid and other) can happen freely with business outcomes in abundance. Where business cards and LinkedIn QR codes are freely exchanged the entire time, and no one leaves with sore legs from standing, bored out of their minds, and wondering, “Why did I come to this?”
Maybe you still host typical pitch events. I’m not trying to be mean or insulting. It’s not a crime to run such an event. But please have a reason for this format.
Don’t simply run pitch events because every other startup program you know of does this. In honesty, I see this happen quite often from government programs. They copy this format for their delegations or internationalization programs, and think, “Well, accelerators do pitch events at demo days. We should do pitch events whenever we take our startups.”
Again, consider your reasons deeply. What’s the value add for the startups, for the people attending, and for your own program goals? There may be other ways that are more win-win-win and support the founders, rather than just copying a dying form of innovation theatre.
In my daily work, I’m starting to encourage colleagues, clients, and partners to phase out pitch events when other formats can do better. Sometimes clients specifically ask for them, and as the mantra goes, customers are always right.
But increasingly, I think there are ways to create amazing experiences for everyone involved, where founders feel hugged and helped, and attendees get valuable networking opportunities. And where investors can enjoy deep personal conversations with founders that let them complete the team due diligence they actually care about.
Most investors tell me they want to get to know the founders better by having real conversations over food and good drinks, rather than just seeing them for a few seconds as they pitch on stage. With non-pitch event formats, you can ensure everyone involved has a fabulous time, networks, seeks valuable outcomes, and enjoys good conversations.
Call me cynical, but the pitch event is over—or at least it should be. It doesn’t mean pitching is dead, nor does it mean putting founders front and center isn’t the right thing to do.
But time moves forward, and so should we. The pitch event is dead. Let’s appreciate what it did—and then long live whatever comes next.