Continued from Executive Summary – Brewing Disaster.
What started and promised to stay as just another lackluster group assignment, turned into probably one of the most empowering experinces in my MBA endevour so far (Ok, getting an A in Microeconomics comes as second close 
).
When I showed up for class a bit earlier than usually, I met with the rest of the team and asked what we were going to do as a group. It was literally 10-15 minutes before class. Surprisingly, two people from the group found my idea quite interesting. They, turned out, also had reservations about the original one, even if for different reasons. The guy with original idea graciously conceded and agreed to go along with my proposal. Another guy just hopped on the new bandwagon.
We had to decide on the Elevator Pitch presentation then. Of course, I was the natural choice to do the Pitch, since I obviously had the best idea of the business start up, and I could not expect people to turn on a dime and do a presentation of something they just learned a few minutes ago. I had to confess here, I was still working on my public speaking skills, which was true. So, I asked if someone else felt confident enough to present the Pitch based on the Executive Summary they’d just read. One person stepped forward and said she could do it. It was a huge relief for me. Our team was the seventh to do presentation. This was all the time she had to prepare – while other six teams were doing their Pitch. We also had to evaluate other teams’ presentations in the meanwhile.
So, the rest of the “preparation” took place in class, before it was our turn to do presentation. While the teammate who volunteered to do the Elevator Pitch was preparing, she asked me to do a short intro and mission statement. In intro she wanted me to explain how I had come up with the business idea. I had shared with my team briefly before class that the whole idea was inspired by my 11-year old daughter, who is very entrepreneurial. I thought that natural entrepreneurial spirit of the kids in upper-elementary and middle school was usually stifled by the time they could do something meaningful as grown ups. And that was really how I got on the whole path of thinking about it and doing some preliminary research.
Of course, I had no choice, but to agree to do the mission statement part of presentation, given all the implications of putting my team on a spot at the very last moment. Another team member offered to pick up the part on the financial model and revenue generating model in the Pitch. In my Executive Summary I was fuzzy on that aspect, as I did not have time to think it through in details. So he suggested to talk about corporate sponsorship model. At that moment the only natural reaction to this proposal could be: “Of course, whatever! Just do it!”
When our turn to do the Elevator Pitch eventually came, we had three presenters. The whole thing was prettey much pulled out on improvization based on a half-baked Executive Summary, which was born just a few hours prior.
After a 3-minutes presentation we were answering questions from the classmates on different aspect of the enterprise. All three of us pitched in to answering those questions. As a group we were giving quite coherent response.
I was really amazed by what we managed to accomplish as a team under the circumstances.
The highest mark for me was that the guy who had done presentation in the class of his real functioning non-profit, found the idea very plausible and shared some advice with me. So did the professor in his comments after the presentation. That was just unbelievable.
I just have to confirm again what I said in the beginning of the post: the making of the Elevator Pitch was probably one of the most empowering experiences for me personally in my MBA tenure at GWSB so far. The most amazing part of it was how my teammates were able to step in at the last moment and just do it.
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