I met with Emmett Kilduff, Founder & CEO of London based cmypitch.com [see my pitch]last week. Cmypitch.com is an online community for entrepreneurs and business owners. It has a focus on using video as a means for entrepreneurs to engage with prospective investors, and relevant service providers. This trend towards the use of video was previously written about by Tim Berry in his post: Put your video online and represents a new way for entrepreneurs to engage with prospective investors.
Angels Den launched a similar video pitching offering in the U.K. earlier in the year but maintains a more narrow focus on ‘the pitch’ in contrast to the Cmypitch website which has a broader set of sections including business directories and video clips from well known entrepreneurs.
I am definitely intrigued by these developments – I would have thought that an online video pitch was something for a very tiny minority of sophisticated entrepreneurs. However, it seems the videos can function like an executive summary, acting as an opportunity for prospective investors to get a feel for any proposal in advance of scheduling a meeting.
Unfortunately, as a user I get frustrated that corporate firewalls and troublesome broadband connections can make the user experience for watching video difficult. So these initiatives are not without their challenges. Like all new initiatives they need scale to achieve real success and as the cost to make a video falls and broadband penetration in the U.K. continues to grow so too will their prospective markets. I wish them both well.
Alan Gleeson
Managing Director
Palo Alto Software Ltd
London, UK
Alan Gleeson was the general manager of Palo Alto Software UK, makers of Business Plan Pro and LivePlan. Alan has an MBA from Oxford and an MSc from University College, Cork, Ireland. You can follow Alan on Twitter @alangleeson.
