it can mean the difference between a hot date and a lonely friday night. it can mean the difference between landing your dream job and going back to your mom's basement.
in the hardware-startup world, pitching your first product well can be the difference between getting your product on the market and it gathering dust on a workshop shelf.
jim wang, 36, is working on his pitch.
he wants to have it right by november when he leaves shenzhen for silicon valley in the united states and comes face-to face-with potential investors.
wang and his wife, vivian yuan, lead a startup tentatively named madada. their first product is a bluetooth connected hand mirror. it looks like a makeup compact and uses sensors to check skin moisture levels.
wang's company will need investors if the product is ever going to make it into women's handbags and silicon valley is the place to go for venture capital.
in 2014, silicon valley topped the world for venture capital with us$24 billion of investment, according to a report by financial firm ernst and young. silicon valley is also possibly the most important place in the world to have a good pitch.
if wang is going to find investors, he will have to overcome challenges american entrepreneurs don't face, including a culture gap and a language barrier.
"compared to the teams from the united states and canada, their education is more about how to present themselves," said wang. "we're a local team. we’re chinese."
ian lesnet is originally from the united states and sells his company's hardware through shenzhen-based seeed studio. lesnet has judged pitch contests and estimates he has gone to maker fairs up to 15 times a year over the past 6 years.
"i've literally heard 100,000 pitches or more," he said.
lesnet said that chinese startups are technically competent, but sometimes struggle to explain their companies to investors.
“american education for the most part teaches us to communicate well. you need to be able to communicate and if you can’t communicate you can’t do anything,” said lesnet.
“american groups might have four engineers and at least one person who can sell,” he said, adding that even in europe he thought americans were better salespeople.
being a chinese startup comes with challenges, but it also comes with advantages.
members of wang’s small company have ties to factories in the area and they speak the same language as the people who would be manufacturing the product.
the same report from ernst and young shows china became the second largest market for venture capital in 2014 with us$15 billion invested, although still behind the us$52 billion in the united states.
wang hopes he will find investors in the united states, but said he can also raise money through crowdfunding platforms run by popular chinese websites jingdong and taobao.
in 2014, beijing was placed second for specific area with most venture capital invested at us$7 billion.
for now, wang is looking towards california. “it’s very difficult to create new cosmetic products … usually for women, they want to use a well-known brand,” he said. “it’s about thinking, how to define the product.”
