Advice for winning stock pitch competitions - How do people do it?
I often see people on LinkedIn who have placed as a finalist/1st/2nd/3rd in a ton of stock pitch competitions or case competitions and I'm wondering how they do it. Oftentimes it's mostly even up to luck to get a chance to pitch (as the first screening round in a lot of competitions is just assessing your slidedeck). How do you have a chance to stand out from hundreds/thousands of competitors?
Is it about how polished or visually aesthetic your slidedeck is? Or is it about the length/density of your slidedeck like having a ridiculously long appendix or massive wordcount in each slide (given that there's often a slide limit)?
I'm really scratching my head at how people consistently win or place highly in like a dozen stock pitches on LinkedIn and how they have the time/effort to do that.
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Not a pitch comp kid but the ppl ik that win them dedicate an insane amount of time to their pitches. Know everything cold. Reach out to alum or cold email industry bankers to get their takes on the company. Spent 3-4 hours a day at school's bbg lab. Some of them even went as far as trying to get satellite images. All have a strong contrarian angle and often times contrarian for the sake of contrarian
Yeah but this is a little stupid to do in terms of time dedicated just to have networking opportunities at the actual competition or to add on your resume. The time could be spent just directly networking, studying to boost your GPA, or interview prepping. I was hoping there was something all winning pitches had in common that doesn't take as much time, such as (I've thought of a few below):
- Stacking up on appendixes so your pitch looks high effort, even if the appendixes are borderline irrelevant/bullshit
- Recycling recent pitches you found online and copy the majority of it to save time/have a framework to base your pitch around
- Be extremely visually appealing and color-coordinated to the point you stand out from other pitches
I mean ppl often make one pitch and run that to the ground at most comps. Oftentimes, it's the pitch they developed from their investment fund. Not like they do the whole thing everytime
IME great presentation skills (telling jokes, etc.) and just showing up and looking professional count for a lot, probably more so than a pretty deck (given everyone's deck sucks anyway being clueless undergrads) and definitely more than in-depth research (which judges have no time to read). You're right though that the benefits honestly aren't much, but you can have a decent point to tack on your CV without too much work if you do it right.
Oh and that appendices trick would probably work, but expect most other teams to be doing it. And be careful about how irrelevant you get with your appendix; judges might just pick one at random to review.
Know your shit and present the story well. You should know way more than the material you show on the slides.
Crushing the Q&A portion is key
Competed in three stock pitch competitions 1st with one pitch and then a 2nd/1st place with another pitch.
If I had to break it down I’d say it was:
Picking a good/decent idea matters, but what matters more is executing that idea really really well.
Myself and the other team members knew the idea cold. I could explain the last 10 years of both businesses and the competitors back about 2-3 years. Know the industry inside and out.
I spent a stupid amount of time formatting that slide deck. For both pitches I was the final one to go over and format everything. Printed the decks multiple times and checked them over. Also thinking about white space, slide design and content on each. If it wasn’t future looking or necessary context, goodbye.
Catalyst path: how exactly are you making money?
Thesis/model aligned your model should tell the exact same story as your thesis clearly highlight the key drivers.
Rehearse your pitch. This was the hardest part for me but knowing the idea cold helps a lot.
Understanding the risk case is the best way to prepare for Q&A ultimately got picked apart because I didn’t understand a risk to the company.
Valuation: don’t throw the kitchen sink at it, do what makes sense for it.
Happy to answer anything else that might be helpful, good luck!
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