The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (ECCI) is a low carbon and climate innovation hub which offers expertise, support, a network and venue to help kick start ground breaking ideas. It delivers two programmes to get climate start-ups investment-ready as part of its partnership with the EU innovation agency Climate-KIC:
Accelerator
A three-stage, 18-month accelerator programme offering early stage entrepreneurs access to up to €60,000 grant funding, business coaching, a range of masterclasses and free workspace at ECCI’s award-winning low carbon hub.
To date ECCI’s Climate-KIC Accelerator programme has kick-started 17 Scottish companies and businesses from the beta class of 2017 have scooped 14 awards and more than £500,000 in investment. Europe-wide, Climate-KIC Accelerator Programme companies have raised over £550million in external investment and have created over 2500 jobs.
The Challenge
The companies taking part in the programmes all need to be able to articulate their business idea clearly and succinctly in a variety of ways – pitching to customers, investors, advisors and at competitions. They also need to pitch to a panel at the end of each stage of the programme to update a panel on their progress and to enter the next stage.
I ran half day workshops with up to 15 entrepreneurs in each and worked with them on how to prepare and deliver their pitches, using a 1 minute elevator pitch as an example.
We discussed all aspects of delivery and using natural style, presentation strategy and content structure and using visual aids. Everyone brought a 1 minute pitch with them to work on during the workshop. They had 2 opportunities to present in front of the group which I filmed, then gave feedback with video review.
Results
· Clear, compelling and succinct pitches
· More time efficient preparation
· Learnt how to communicate consistently with authority and credibility
· Learnt how to pitch with confidence and be engaging
· Learnt how to manage apprehension and nerves
· Consistency, focus on their key messages
· Best practice preparation of notes
‘Brilliant workshop that I wish I’d had sooner in my life!’
‘Great to get personal insights into your approach to presenting.’
‘Very useful session, good pace and level of content.’
