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Winning A 5 Minute Pitch: How Candace Klein Won $1.7M in 25 Competitions (And Why She and SoMoLend Are Giving Money Away)

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“Tell me something unique or quirky about you. Something nobody knows.” Candace Klein, the founder of Bad Girl Ventures and SoMoLend, an online lending platform, was still in high energy last night after presenting her live pitch strategies to several hundred entrepreneurs in Salt Lake. The small dinner group was the denouement of an intense evening. She’d flown in earlier in the day to give her presentation at the University of Utah for Grow America and the local Entrepreneur Circle Meetup. Response was so overwhelming, Grow America EVP Richard Swart had moved the event to a bigger facility. Twice.

Clearly Candace is not an individual accustomed to getting turned down. We oblige, and one by one the group of eight (all highly accomplished) produce some surprises. One is planning a run for mayor and secretly loves competitive dance. Another skis moguls, and had a key role in event organization for six prior Olympics events. Investment super-connector and strategist Judy Robinett, covered in Kathy Caprino’s Forbes article on June 18, started her first business, a restaurant in Idaho, at age 41 with a $1.4M SBA loan.  Marty Tate, an investor, attorney and crowdfunding advocate, played bass for a budding rock band that opened for Gwen Stefani and No Doubt.

Candace went last. The things we learned left me stunned:

  • Born to a teenage mom, she’s the oldest of 5 children. Her childhood was impoverished—her father left the family when she was five.
  • Candace holds four degrees—communications, political science, marketing and management. “At a certain point you realize ‘It’s only two more classes, and I could have another degree'—so why not?”
  • She saved $35,000 by working as a Series 6 investment trader during college to pay for graduate school. With her heart set on a law degree, she left Cincinnati for the West coast in her Geo Metro, but never made it to class. She became ill, and diagnosed with ovarian cancer, returned home. Ultimately the cancer went into remission (she’s now dealt with it twice), but her savings were gone, to cover medical costs.
  • Undeterred, Candace found a benefactor and mentor to pay for her to go to law school and complete the degree.
  • After her second bout with cancer (and her second remission, two years ago) she started her first company – an investment fund for women-owned busineses, Bad Girl Ventures (BGV) – and then her second – SoMoLend (Social Mobile Local Lending), to provide a lending platform for startup companies, particularly designed to help startups and small businesses to build credit and become bankable.
  • At age 31, she’s won 25 business competitions so far. (She’s actually entered 27, but two of them are not yet complete.) She’s raised $1.2 million in equity and approximately $500,000 in prizes, which she’s using to expand SoMoLend.
  • She had a key role in working with congress and the SEC in the writing and passing of the JOBS Act. She proudly notes that she was responsible for 38 words in the final version of the JOBS legislation, having had the opportunity to participate in the red-lining process of the various drafts. (“I consider it to be perhaps the most important piece of legislation ever passed.”)
  • She holds a key role in the evolution of crowdfund investing, as the chair of CFIRA (CrowdFund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates) and a founding board member of CfPA (Crowdfunding Professional Association).
  • As a sideline, when she’s not pitching business plans, she’s judging, participating with fellow judge Daymond John, founder of FUBU Wear, in regional live pitches for ABC’s Shark Tank.

As a final note, beginning today, August 15, she’s launching an online business competition of her own, SoMoLaunch: Between now and September 30, she’s accepting applications at SoMoLend.com. The winner, announced Oct. 1, will receive $5,000 and a private business strategy session with Candace. She’ll be collaborating and sharing leads in her business competition with Grow America, whose local $1M Springboard competition will shortly be launching a national online business competition as well.

She’s received a fair amount of media attention. Here she is making a 5 minute live pitch of her own, to Business Insider:

The Pitch By SoMoLend That Won $75,000 at Startup 2012

Here are some of Candace Klein’s top secrets for a winning 5 minute pitch:

  • Passion.
  • Projection.
  • Sell the problem before attempting to the sell the solution.
  • Present a credible team.
  • Connect with the judges before engaging the audience.
  • Be confident/know your stuff
  • Show enthusiasm

In general, Candace says to have your company’s master slide deck available at all times. Keep it concise, but make sure it contains all of the critical information you need. (No typos!)

According to Candace, anyone can learn to make a successful live business pitch. Now 31, she recalls that at age 23 she had been so intimidated that when she went to public events she would hide in the restroom until she heard the event begin, knowing that if she ran to her seat at the last minute, she’d only need to speak to the person directly on her left and her right.

When walking into a live pitch situation, whether in networking or in an audience pitch situation, Candace gives the following advice:

  • Take a breath mint.
  • If the individual looks away, you’ve bored them. They’re done. The pitch wasn’t succinct enough.
  • How do you get the individual or the audience to say “Please tell me more?” It’s like dating, she says. It’s analogous to getting the phone number at the bar; then getting the first date. It’s critical to succeed at the first two steps to get further.
  • Anyone can do this. How many say “heck ya, bring it on?”
  • Become a complete “geek” about your business, your industry and your competition. Before you talk to anyone else, know your stuff. And always know who you’re talking to.
  • Appeal to your audience’s greed/need first, before launching into your own need and ask.
  • An extra tip—when going to an event, talk to the speaker before they’ve spoken. You’ll have a wide open window, as everyone else will be thronging them afterwards.
  • Share your personal story. The three most important things that make you a better fit to run your company than anyone else. Don’t be afraid to share your vulnerability as well.

Converesely, from her experience in judging regional Shark Tank contestants with Daymond John, here are her inputs on the things that cause a live pitch to fail:

 Pitching Pitfalls

  • No exit plan
  • No competition (Everybody has competition! Never, ever attempt to claim that you don’t.)
  • Jargon/acronyms
  • Too many words per slide, with no graphics
  • Not telling how you’ll make money
  • Unrealistic projections
  • If I just capture 1% of the market… (She notes one of her most experienced executive judges retorting, “I’ve been in business 25 years. I still haven’t captured 1% of the market.”)
  • Reading your notes, or reading the slides. Look into the judges’ eyes. Don’t be looking at your cards or your slides.
  • Mistakes/misspellings (Unforgivable!)

I look forward to following Candace and SoMoLend in future Forbes columns. What’s her ultimate goal? The odds are high, she acknowledges, that cancer may visit again. “There may not be a tomorrow. I intend to change the world.”  I note to myself privately that she already has.

Oh, and one more interesting quirk about Candace: She “couch surfs.” Perpetually frugal, she hates to spend the funds for hotels. She’s stayed with friends, business associates, sometimes even the homes of people she’s only known for an hour. A recent stay in the garage of a couple resulted in her helping them fund a business they hadn’t felt they were ready to start—a dream goal of opening a bed and breakfast.

So if Candace comes to your city in the near future, beware.