Pitch Competition

Who it's for

Student founders with an idea and a competition date, and hackathon teams with a prototype and a demo day, in teams of one to five.

Output

• An opportunity verdict tied to the assumption most likely to break the idea
• A scored customer discovery interview and a plan built from the team's own evidence
• Two scored pitch rehearsals, the sixty-second pitch and the panel answer, each with unlimited attempts and a charted trajectory
• Scored against published frameworks: Behaviour-Grounded Discovery, Underlying-Job Framing, the Minto Pyramid Principle and Jay Heinrichs' Aristotelian Rhetoric

Program contents

1. Opportunity judgement — Opportunity Assessment
2. Customer validation — Customer Discovery
3. Investor-ready plan — Business Plan
4. Pitch under interruption · Presenting under challenge — Elevator Pitch · Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

A four-week program for student founders and hackathon teams entering a judged pitch competition, assigned by a coach, society lead or organiser, built on Renatus. One document room, one interview, one plan and two pitch rehearsals · Four weeks, one room a week and two in the last · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

The rooms

Why this program exists

Student founders and hackathon teams get one shot in front of the judges. The idea that sounded strong in the team room falls apart on a market question nobody sourced, a customer claim nobody tested, or a follow-up question nobody rehearsed. This program prepares them through five Renatus rooms, built in the order a judged pitch is built: the opportunity tested, the customers interviewed, the plan written, the sixty-second pitch rehearsed against someone who interrupts, and the panel questions rehearsed against an audience that pushes back. Ren builds every room from the team's own idea and plays every person in it.

What you'll achieve

1. A verdict on the opportunity, tied to the assumption most likely to break it and what would need to change it
2. A scored customer discovery interview, with the moment that earned each score, and unlimited attempts, each a new interview, charted against every attempt before it
3. A plan built from the team's own evidence, with the market, the revenue model and the risks traceable to what they stated
4. Two scored rehearsals, the sixty-second pitch and the panel answer, each retaken as often as the team wants

At a glance

Who it's for

Student founders with an idea and a competition date, and hackathon teams with a prototype and a demo day, in teams of one to five. Customer Discovery calibrates to the venture's stage, from an early idea with no solution presented to an established product moving into a new segment, so one cohort can hold a team testing a hypothesis and a team already selling. It assumes each team can give a few hours between sessions and has people who have the problem that they can talk to. It assumes nothing about prior fundraising or investor experience.

Cadence

4 weeks

1

Opportunity judgement · Opportunity Assessment · Read the verdict and the assumption most likely to break it

2

Customer validation · Customer Discovery · Read Evidence vs Opinion and the recommended focus

3

Investor-ready plan · Business Plan · Read Market Opportunity and Risks

4

Pitch under interruption · Presenting under challenge · Elevator Pitch · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Ask Quality and Question Response; read the cohort report; set the ongoing plan

Session by session