New Tech Academy is a project based learning school. The students learn in a very hands-on way, by doing. Sometimes that means stretching well beyond your comfort zone to something brand new.

Every year at New Tech, seniors in Bob Haddad and Beth Meneely’s class complete all of the steps of conceiving and developing a startup business. Most won’t actually launch theirs after graduation, although some will. The lessons all learn about how to make entrepreneurial decisions in the real world, no matter their career, are the real value.

Today they were preparing to pitch their startups at a mini trade show that New Tech holds in their hallways. Besides students, members of the local business community will come and browse the trade show. Student entrepreneurs need to be prepared to talk about their businesses. It was my time to listen to them ahead of the trade show and give suggestions.

I was totally impressed with the quality of the business concepts being developed this year. Here are a few of them.

One venture is creating an app to help students highlight their skills and match them to the needs of local employer. Kind of a small student version of LinkedIn, but with much more emphasis on active matching than on social interaction. Students, as they noted, aren’t automatically pros at communicating their skills and strengths - and may go underemployed as a result (while employers miss finding people with just the special skills they are looking for).
Two were designing and creating custom apparel (or accessories). They were both hitting on the need for students to express their own personality - in ways that buying at a big box store, online store, or even a small boutique can’t satisfy.
One was creating an Instagram-like app to match trainers to off-season athletes or others who are serious about working out the right way (rather than serious about the pizza at Planet Fitness).
One plans to sell nachos and slushies that are custom made to your taste. Enough said. I’m in.
One was building high performance custom gaming computers, like a local version of Alienware. They know their market and know that the ability to buy a top performing machine from people who understand gaming is missing around here.
The last group I’ll mention provides glamour esthetics services - to help ladies look, feel, and do their best. Interesting side note - one of the founders had already been providing services for 2 years to over 100 clients! There’s some credibility for you!

I found three common threads from these high school seniors creating what was probably the first business pitch they’ve ever had to create. I think all entrepreneurs, regardless of age, can learn from these.

Nearly everyone needed to spend a little more time talking about their '“why” - the reason they knew they had a problem worth solving. The good news is they all knew their why, but it didn’t come naturally to articulate it. Without that, a pitch can lose its essence, be pretty darn “matter of fact”, and risk boring the listeners.
Nearly everyone needed to get out of the box more quickly. I tend to believe that in the first 10-15 seconds of your pitch you need to say WHAT you are selling, WHO will buy it, and WHY. Then the listener has a solid foundation and you can talk in more detail. But set the stage immediately before your listener starts to wonder what your business actually is.
Literally everyone just trailed off at the end of the pitch, like they expected that their listeners would know what to do next to keep the conversation rolling (students are used to this pause, and teachers who always pick up the ball). We talked about having a question elicit conversation about interest, not being worried if some are not interested and just walk off, but being ready to close those who are really interested. Since most won’t have product to sell immediately, we talked about that close being collecting contact information and deeper knowledge about what interested the listener.