Successful Dragon’s Den contestant, Peter Hart of Fun Fancy Dress, has revealed a new business venture that was inspired by his experience on the TV show.
Pitchforit is a video pitching site that is described as ‘Dragon’s Den without the nerves’ – so basically getting your pitch in front of possible investors without having to be mauled on prime-time television.
Prospective investors can watch all of the video pitches for free and register to contact the entrepreneurs. To add your pitch to the selection on offer there is a stepped pricing system. To upload your own work costs £49 ($77), to have Pitchforit film you at one of its drop-in locations (this service has not been rolled out yet) will put you back £79 ($124) and there will be an animation service listed as ‘coming soon’ which uses the Goanimate system and provides videos within seven days.
For a limited time the service is free, which means that the site has an interesting population of pitches to provide some inspiration about how you might want to stand out from that crowd.
As well as being open to possible investors to cruise by and take a look, the site has a panel of entrepreneurs which are said to be ‘ready and willing to consider business opportunities’. These include Rachel Elnaugh, one of the original dragons of Dragon’s Den and founder of Red Letter Days; Mark Pearson, founder of MyVoucherCodes and appeared on the Secret Millionaire TV show. Confused.com founder Sara Murray OBE, 4Networking founder Brad Burton and Ruth Badger, a former contestant on the UK version of The Apprentice are also listed.
The service has already had at least one hit. Laura Thomas who founded the health business Happy Sugar Habits, bagged £10,000 from digital agency GTI who came across Pitchforit before it had even launched.
The service is interesting and browsing the existing videos also provides a curious sample of how people present themselves and their pitch. It’s excellent for research.
Putting pitches through a gatekeeper like this might seem counterintuitive to some, but if this does become a showcase where investors regularly drive by to find fresh possibilities, it does make it a handy place to find prospects.
Image Credit: epSos.de / Flickr
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