BRINK PITCH PREP FOR SDAC: CUSTOMER DISCOVERY & PRODUCT

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Brink Pitch Prep for SDAC is a weekly series running January to February 2025 to help entrepreneurs prepare to compete in the San Diego Angel Conference (SDAC). SDAC, hosted by San Diego State University (SDSU). is a 3-month series of events (March to May 2025) that seeks to fund founders by activating angel investors who raise funds to invest in the winner of the pitch competition. Through a series of evaluations and pitch events, investors arrive at 6 finalists who pitch at the SDAC finale on June 5, 2025. The SDAC application deadline is February 27, 2025.

EVENT FORMAT

Brink Pitch Prep for SDAC prepares founders to pitch by reviewing slide deck topics, slide design, and Gust, the SDAC platform used for company evaluation. Attendees may attend the entire series or single events, however attendance is not required to apply for SDAC. Pizza, soda, and a bottle refill station provided.

Customer Discovery & Product

Customer discovery helps you understand your target market’s pain points, needs, and how your product directly addresses them. Referencing customer discovery proves you’ve conducted thorough research and validated your solution through customer feedback and aren’t just building a product based on assumptions. This reduces risk and builds confidence in your business idea with potential investors. Benton Moore will lead this session integrating aspects from the Lean Essentials Sprint series he teaches.

The “product slide” focuses on the details of your product, including its technical aspects, and functionalities. It differs from the “solution slide,” which explains how your product addresses a specific problem or need, key benefits, and value proposition. A product slide should not only effectively showcase your product but also tell a compelling story and how you plan to navigate the regulatory pathway (if applicable). Investors want to see that you’ve built something and that it can attract users (which you can learn from customer discovery) and is differentiated and defensible (attend our Competiton & IP session). Prasad Sunkara will share best practices for how best to talk about your technical product in a pitch to investors.

What to expect:

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

• Conduct customer discovery
• Integrate findings throughout your pitch deck
• Effectively present your technical product to investors