Imagine you have just a few days to prepare the business pitch of your life that will be viewed by millions. The one that could propel you and your venture to nationwide recognition and secure invaluable funding from seasoned and well-connected investors, or that turns into a humiliating disaster with no offers of support – just an embarrassing silence.
Marisa Poster and Teddie Levenfiche were given five days’ notice before appearing on Dragon’s Den, the UK version of the hit series Shark Tank. The aim of the co-founders of PerfectTed, a pioneering matcha green tea energy drink is to become the global leaders in natural energy and matcha, leveraging the unprecedented growth in both categories. But how do you tell dragons that you are on a mission to spread positive energy?
“We faced a massive time crunch,” recalls Marisa, “but we remained focused on two paramount tasks: 1) understanding our financial projections and 2) crafting a compelling pitch. My Masters at Imperial College Business School came to the rescue as I recalled the significance of storytelling in captivating investors’ attention, which ultimately informed the pitch’s structure.
Leading with my personal story rather than just the product or brand helped forge an emotional connection with the Dragons, proving to be the pivotal factor in securing offers from all five of them!”
Don’t miss these 7 Tips For Pitching Your Entrepreneurial Idea, Whether To Angels Or Sharks.
Marisa has ADHD and anxiety, and for years she suffered from the negative side effects of caffeine and sugary drinks. After completing her degree in Urban Studies at UPenn she began her early career in real estate finance with Starwood Capital Group in Greenwich, CT while Teddie worked as an associate consultant at Bain & Co. It was during these long hours at work that they discovered the benefits of matcha green tea as a healthy alternative to coffee.
After a year they headed to London, where Marisa enrolled in the MSc Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management at Imperial College Business School. With Teddie and his brother Levi they noticed how few healthy ready-to-drink options were available, and decided to create their own.
“My Masters at Imperial equipped me with a comprehensive understanding of the entrepreneurial process, from idea generation and market research to business planning and execution. I was able to apply these principles directly to PerfectTed during its initial stages,” she explains, “crafting a well-thought-out business plan and strategy.
As a founder managing ADHD and anxiety through matcha, Marisa sees PerfectTed as a platform to destigmatize neurodivergent and other mental health conditions, continuing the company’s commitment to promoting mental well-being. And the company is already on its own healthy growth path, expected to achieve £4 million (US$5 million) in the next 12 months. Their drinks and powders are available at retailers that include Tesco, Waitrose, Holland & Barrett, Selfridges and Joe & The Juice.
And with two influential dragons – Peter Jones and Steven Bartlett – as investors and advisors they are on track to achieve the ‘World Domination’ that Marisa described when asked about her vision for the business on Dragon’s Den.
Business school would seem to be as natural training ground for developing business plans and business pitches. For brothers Benjamin and Alexander Michel, the founders of Finanzguru, their business was borne out of a simple desire: to help customers make the best out of their finances as easily as possible.
Benjamin, a graduate of the BSc Business Administration programme at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, had witnessed first-hand a startling reality for many banking customers. “Banks do not really work in the interest of the customer.”
Much like Imperial’s Poster, Benjamin had forged a successful career in finance before deciding to launchFinanzguru, ‘a smart financial assistant which gives users control over their finances and contracts within a mobile app.’
And, like his London-based counterpart, when looking for funding, the Michel brothers turned to a TV show reminiscent of Shark Tank to secure that investment:
“We decided to go on Die Höhle der Löwen, which has more than three million viewers and thereby three million potential clients, since anybody with a banking account can use Finanzguru. And it has been the best decision ever: We not only received the highest single investment on the show to date but also acquired more than 200,000 new customers and, with Carsten Maschmeyer, a great investor who has been supporting us ever since,” Benjamin explains.
Asked to reflect finanzguru’s trajectory, from inception to TV show investment, the Frankfurt graduate is quick to highlight the mass appeal of the product:
“If you have a B2C (Business to Consumer) product with a huge potential audience “Die Höhle der Löwen” or similar shows are the perfect place to give your journey a head-start.”
He’s right. Beyond the similar educational and professional backgrounds that both startup founders have, what unites Frankfurt’s Benjamin Michel and Imperial’s Marisa Poster is that, in both cases, the startup had broad consumer appeal.
It was that same broad appeal that has seen Dr. Tom McCartan, a graduate of Trinity Business School’s MBA Program find success with his startup, Nazata Bio.
A Dublin-based medtech, Nazata helps patients reduce their blood pressure through an app that works as a digital dietician, exercise coach and behavioural scientist. And, for McCartan, while he can’t boast of any TV show appearances in the pursuit of funding, courtesy of his work with Nazata, he’s been named as one of the 30 Under 30 for tech in the Irish national, Business Post.
Nazata may soon replicate the continental European success of Benjamin Michel’s Finanzguru, as the Irish-based digital therapeutics startup is set to launch in Germany.
McCartan is one of many MBAs that gone on to launch a successful startup. Among them, a handful took their chance to swim in the Shark Tank:
· NYU Stern MBA, Brian Shimmerlik secured $2 million in funding with his co-founder Steven Bofill to build Vengo Labs, now a leader in place-based media on over 25,000 digital screens;
· UBC Sauder MBA, Dustin Sproat came away with Close to $250,000 for an ice-hockey themed social networking on Canada’s Dragon’s Den, receiving offers from all five investors;
· Wharton EMBA, Zander Adell had sharks fighting among themselves to secure a 12% stake in Doorman, the delivery service company he launched a year after his EMBA;
· Babson Olin MBA, Nadine Habayeb pitched her Indian-inspired popcorn snack and landed $200,00 from Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary who himself has an MBA from Ivey Business School.
From learning the building blocks of fundraising to conducting effective market research, business education can be a great path to entrepreneurial success. And the business school community is a great place to find support, investors and even your first customers.
But as Marisa Poster cautions, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. This perfectly captures the unpredictability of entrepreneurship. The reality is that there will always be unforeseen challenges, which often force you to rip up that initial blueprint.
So, while my Masters equipped me with a really solid foundation, it’s been the real-world experiences and the constant need to be agile and improvise that have truly honed my entrepreneurial skills.”
It is a message that rings true with Steve Blank, often described as the ‘father of modern entrepreneurship’. Ahead of speaking engagement at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School this summer to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Oxford Seed Fund, , Blank was asked what to identify what he saw as the biggest misconception about innovation and entrepreneurship.
“People think you go to school and you’re ready to be a CEO, that because you read about how to start a company or took a class, you are therefore ready to be a founder. It doesn’t work that way. Trying to be an entrepreneur without experiential education is like trying to be a heart surgeon by reading a textbook.”
Blank makes a good point. Experience is irreplaceable. So what should educators be doing?
“Institutions, like Oxford Saïd, Stanford and Imperial College are key to a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem,” he says. “Instead of being passive, more and more universities are becoming active in building an entrepreneurial community. They have internal incubators, maker spaces, their own venture funds. They connect to the community; they connect to venture capital.
“They’ve become outward-facing. It’s a big idea.”
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