How to present a project

Hi everyone, Tom here! This week, we'll study the intricate art of presenting a project to an audience, otherwise known as pitching.

Nicolas and I have been confronted to this challenge on a daily basis for quite some time now, and wanted to share what we've learnt. This articles applies to all kinds of projects or ideas, whether it be explaining your job, your upcoming worldwide trip, or, in our case the startup we've built.

What makes pitching hard?

We've all already pitched something we hold dear to a friend, family member or even people we don't know. Most of the time, we face one of the two following problems:

• The minimalist pitch: you don't give away enough information to your audience, and they end up feeling like you don't seem that bothered about your project. For example, if you asked me what my job is, and I simply answered "I'm a software engineer", you might feel like I don't particularly enjoy what I do.
• The over-detailed pitch: on the opposite side of the spectrum, giving away too much unsolicited information will lose you audience, and they'll end up not understanding what you are talking about.

Striking the right balance between both of these mistakes is what makes a great pitch. The people you're talking to must understand what you're talking about, but still have headspace left to think of follow up questions. Don't worry if you see yourself in these issues, we've all been there, I personally suffered from the over-detailed pitch syndrome for quite some time!

How do I choose what to say?

I won't claim to have found the magical solution that fits all needs, but here's what I'd generally advise, based on my experience, and the courses I've taken with experienced teachers.

1. The intro

You should start your pitch with a short, very clear sentence that describes what you are presenting. The objective is that if ever you are cut off just as you finish this sentence, the people you are talking to you still broadly know what you have in mind. For us, we've settled on:

"Grezy is a software development agency."

It's simple enough that 99% of people will understand what we do, and precise enough so you can't really imagine something too far away from what we actually do.

2. The follow up

The next part is probably the hardest one to nail down, and also the most important one. The objective here is to expand on what you said in the first sentence, by guiding the audience onto specific topics you want them to focus on. Generally, you'd like the questions they ask after the pitch to be about your strengths, so you should take advantage of these follow up sentences to display the aspects of the project you are the most confident in.

But Tom, how do I figure out what I should focus on?

I recently took a course that taught me to use the Blue Ocean strategy, to do exactly that. The Blue Ocean is a business strategy that focuses on creating uncontested market space by offering unique value, making competition irrelevant and tapping into new demand. Here is how it works:

• Step 1, brainstorm: Try to find about 12 words that best describe your project. This can be done on your own, but is even better if you do it with other people that are less implicated in your project. We ended up with, in no particular order:

• Step 2, the Blue Ocean Matrix: This part is tough, but extremely useful. Gather all the words you've chosen, and sort them into the following four groups: Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create. You must end up with about an equal number of words in each one. Here is what these groups represent, and what we landed on:
  • Eliminate: Identifies aspects of the project that are unnecessary or outdated. These are things that add complexity, consume resources, or create confusion without contributing real value.
  • Reduce: Focuses on elements that could be simplified or minimised to optimise efficiency. These are aspects that are being over-prioritised but don’t contribute as much to the project’s core goal.
  • Raise: Determines which elements need more focus or enhancement to exceed expectations. This is where you identify the strengths of the project that could benefit from additional attention or investment.
  • Create: Introduces new ideas, methods, or features that haven’t been part of similar projects before. This is where innovation occurs—by filling gaps that competitors or similar initiatives have overlooked.

You can see that our intro sentence is a mix of words in the tone down section. This is the only time we will pronounce them.

• Step 3, building the pitch: Once you've sorted the words, you can put together your follow up sentences. Try to only include Strengthen and Create words, and never talk of the Exclude terms during a pitch. This will force you to stay ultra focused on what makes your project unique, letting you stand out when pitching.

We applied this exercise, and now usually go with something like:

"By leveraging our dual expertises, we specialise in creating high-quality, custom-made solutions for the industrial and high-level sports sectors. We design user-friendly tools that offer significant time savings for our clients, and provide ongoing support throughout the software’s lifecycle."

3. The cherry on top (optional)

If you're feeling at ease with your current pitch, you can append a short sentence that summarises why you do what you do, as opposed to what and how in the previous parts. You can choose to develop your values or vision for the future for example. But be careful, this should never shadow the follow up sentence, so keep it simple, and avoid losing your audience in the final instances of your speech.

Conclusion

You now know how to pitch your projects, and the things to avoid whilst doing so!

Here is a quick summary:

• Make it short (no 5 minute speeches)
• But not too short (or you'll look bored)
• Start with a very simple intro sentence
• Follow up developing what differentiates you from other similar projects

Hope you enjoyed reading this, and feel free to leave us some feedback in the comments bellow!