Creating A Compelling Pitch For Your Startup With PitchIt DDS

Alison Werner

Hello and welcome to the Orthodontic Products Podcast. I’m your host, Alison Werner. Today we have with us veteran dental marketing experts, Mark Ross and Michael Ventriello. They recently joined forces to launch PitchIt DDS. This is an investor presentation creation service specifically for dental industry startup companies. 

 

Orthodontists are creative and innovative by nature, and that creativity and innovative drive often extends into product development and launching a startup company. But how do you get investor funding to take your product to the next level? How do you create a compelling pitch? That’s where Pitch at DDS comes into play, as I understand it. So to tell us more, we have Michael and Mark to walk us through. So thank you for joining me today.

 

Michael Ventriello 

Thank you.

 

Alison 

Great, great. So can you talk to me about your experience prior to coming together? You actually came together before PitchIt. So can you talk about your experience in the marketing industry, dental industry, and what led you to this point?

 

Mark Ross 

Thanks for having us.

 

Mark Ross

It’s kind of a funny story. Mike and I, at one point in time, competed against each other for a business. We were separate agencies and we would run into each other on the way out after a presentation, we could pass each other. But we were very respectful of our talents. And about a year ago, Mike and I started working on another project together and we just started talking more and more and we collaborated on a few ideas relevant to a few customers. And that led us to this brainstorm of an idea called PitchIt DDS.

 

Michael Ventriello 

Yeah. That’s a good and really, you know, the inspiration for that is really the nature of what’s going on in dentistry right now. It’s really a hotbed of innovation. There’s a lot of investment money coming into the industry and there’s more and more companies launching and pitching.

 

And a lot of dental meetings and conferences will have a shark tank type scenario where companies go and they’re vying for, you know, investment money or the big prize. And Mark and I have sat through some of these and the pitches just weren’t good. And it’s like we could help here. So, you know, that was really the inspiration.

 

Alison

Okay, well, Mark, you kind of alluded to this. You two actually came together last year to create a different platform. It’s called the Virtual Dental Team, and it’s a Virtual Focus Group Platform. So can you talk about that first, because that’ll lead us into PitchIt DDS.

 

Mark Ross 

Sure. Having been involved in several focus groups, one thing that was a constant in every one of them was a customer saying, why don’t we always do this? There were always aha moments, moments where they learned a lot or supported what they already knew. And from that, and you add in COVID and a pandemic and the need to be virtual at that time.

 

I had just thought there’s a way to do a focus group without having to bring everybody into a room in Chicago, in New York, in California, wherever, and be actually beholden to who could show up in those locations. The costs, the venue costs, the food, the travel, all those kinds of things. And it’s very expensive. They’re successful, but very expensive. So the virtual concept of doing a focus group lowers the cost by one third, one half what it would normally cost. And that kind of led to the idea to create the virtual dental team. And at that time I reached out to Mike, because we had already been collaborating on some other projects. And I said, Mike, this is right up our alley. This is something we could be doing together. And I think it’s got some legs in it. And a lot of people are already talking about it.

 

Michael Ventriello 

Yeah, and what I really liked about it, Alison, is as marketers, you always want to start from having the research you need to drive the brand strategy to go to market strategy. And sometimes companies just don’t do this because of that expense of the focus group.

 

This really ensures that there’s a marketing baseline, a research baseline rather, for marketing going forward. So it really democratizes the whole premise of a focus group.

 

Mark Ross

Real fast, Allison, it’s an opportunity to have the voice of a customer. Before you launch, before you spend money to launch, you can learn so many different things. And the focus group can be designed to work with different teams around the country so that it’s not zip code biased. You can bring in a team of specialists, dental assistants, hygienists, the client can sit in and weigh in if they want to, or they can be, you know, just watching a video after it’s done. And we would collaborate very early on to learn what the client wanted to learn and develop and design based on that. And sometimes you would go to companies, to participants that used the product or some that didn’t use the product and you wanted to know why. Or they were even using a competitive product.

 

So it opened up a lot of opportunities.

 

Alison 

And so from there, you came into this idea for PitchIt DDS. So you talked a little bit there before about the kind of the market with the innovation and new products and services and what you were seeing, especially with those like Shark Tank type events that are now happening. And there is a focus within the orthodontic industry of really trying to help those startups started by doctors. So can you talk about what a doctor needs to know if they have a product idea. They want to start their own company, they want to do a startup. Where does PitchIt come in?

 

Michael Ventriello 

Really, there’s so many entrepreneurial dentists and they say necessity is the mother of invention. And that’s proven day by day in dentistry. A dentist is doing a procedure, says, I could do this better, or if only the design of this instrument was a little more intuitive, whatever that might be.

 

You know, they’re always thinking because they’re using these things from day to day. So the starting point is, okay, you have an idea. You know, it has to be designed. It should be vetted every step of the way. You know, someone needs to be testing design. You need to have beta testers. You need to figure out how much money you’re going to need to put this into the marketplace and it’s always much more expensive than the entrepreneur thinks. And they’ll say, well, I’ll put my house up in the morgue. And a lot of that happens too. And it’s scary for marketers because it’s like, my God, this guy’s betting the farm on this.

 

Mark Ross

A lot of risk.

 

Michael Ventriello 

We really have to dig deeper and see if this is a viable solution for whatever, you know, is the technology mature? Is there a need for it? Is, a solution in search of a problem? You see that as well too. So, you know, we can, we can help in various phases, but so many companies are under capitalized and I think they resist going to a venture capitalist or private investors, angel investors, because they don’t want to give up control.

 

But if you don’t have anything, you’re not controlling anything either. So there’s a balance to that.

 

Mark Ross

One of the common threads with every invention is that it’s somebody’s baby. It’s somebody’s idea. And they go at it very straightforward without looking at it with perspective. And they don’t necessarily have advisors that can help them and a support system that can help them. And somebody to help them look in the mirror and go, hey, this is a great idea, but here’s where you need to channel it.

 

And what you need to do next. And that’s how VDT, the focus group, is actually a great adjunct to the PitchIt concept, because you can really learn what’s needed and actually help define your presentation based on what you learn through the focus group. It’s not like you need to do both, but it certainly doesn’t hurt, and it helps a lot.

 

Alison

So when should an orthodontist who has a product and wants to do a startup, when should they be reaching out to you?

 

Michael Ventriello 

I would say the earlier, the better. And I’ll tell you why from my experience. A lot of entrepreneurs, when they start up their company, They call their accountant. They have a lawyer. You know, they have other professionals. And many times they bring in the marketing person, the marketing consultant last. And this could be after they gave the product a less than optimal name or they don’t have a clear message. And sometimes they’re already going down a path and then a marketing consultant goes in and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, we, you know, we have to put the brakes on this because we should, we should have done it this way to begin with. And so you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re backing up to almost relaunch rebrand reposition, and you lose time and money when you do that. Would you agree, Mark?

 

Mark Ross

100%. We have a data sheet that shows what founders wish they did differently after the fact. And I can run through that fast. 58 % said more research prior to the launch would have helped. A stronger business plan, better marketing, more financial backing, of course, that’s why they’re doing it. Better financial management, a better product, which is interesting because at that point somebody should have said not a good product. A better team, right? A better team, the board, advisors, anybody that’s going to actually help really keep. And one of the, it’s actually the lowest percentage, but one of the more interesting elements is the pivoting. Learning at what point do you need to kind of redirect?

 

And that’s actually, I think while that’s a lower percentage out of the mix with marketing being 50 % and more research being 50 % and pivoting being 15%, that’s a big move at the end. And pivoting always gets to the point where like, I’m not gonna be successful here or they’ve launched, but it’s not catching. And they’ve got to be able to shift gears a little bit and find a better niche and refocus. And sometimes that’s all it takes.

 

Michael Ventriello

Yeah. And a good example of, of, of pivoting and it, you know, it’s certainly not the only example is you’ll have a company that, you know, they want to get the biggest market share possible. So they’ll launch a product into the GP universe because, Hey, there’s a hundred and eighty thousand practicing dentists or whatever the latest number is. So, you know, of course we want to have that market share but the product might be very specialized where it would appeal first to a periodontist, an orthodontist and endodontist. And rather than starting with that baseline of specialists who are most likely to be an early adopter and build social proof of it working and then maybe giving testimonials that a general practice practitioner might say, well, if the specialist says that this is good, maybe I should use it. So that’s one example of that pivot.

 

Alison 

Well, I want to take us back to PitchIt and part of the whole idea is helping startups, orthodontic startups develop that compelling pitch for something like funder backing, which you talked about how many of them say, I wish I had had more. So can you talk to me about what an investor pitch encompasses? Let’s start there.

 

Mark Ross

It’s very easy. It starts off with the mission or the vision the founder might have. Why did, you know, they found the need, but what was the mission? What are they trying? What is in their heart? Where is that passion? Because they’ve got a lot of passion. That’s why they pursued it. That’s why they could be potentially putting, you know, using part of their mortgage, you know, on a home. So that it starts there. It’s pretty basic. It’s what problem is being solved, what financially and what market size and what’s the opportunity, what’s the upside, how big is the marketplace for whatever the product is. Then it gets into what makes the product unique and then how do you build traction and revenue on down to evidence that their team can execute. And quite often an idea is great and quite often there’s a good market for it and quite often they can even show that it’ll gain traction. They can prove out that it’ll get traction at some point, but they don’t have the team to execute. And sometimes some of the guidance comes in, who do you bring in so that when an investor comes in, they don’t look at you and go, well, you’re an orthodontist and you came up with a great idea, but you know this is a totally different animal. A product is totally different from a practice. And it’s not something you’re trained for. And it’s not to take anything away from the orthodontists that have launched and have successfully managed a new product and built a business. But more often than not, that’s not something that’s scalable. That business mentality is not there. And so you do need to surround yourself with the right team.

 

And the importance of having, you know, an optimal pitch deck, you know, you only have one chance to make a first impression. That’s, you know, that’s the old platitude that’s still, you know, is true. But the exercise and the development of a pitch deck is very often a foundation of the marketing that’s going to come forward afterwards. So in the pitch deck, you know, what’s the reason for this product? How is it different? So, you know, the positioning of it, what is the branding statement? How are you describing the company and the product? Once you nail that down and you kind of distill that in the investor pitch,

 

That’s a jumping off point for a lot of different forms of marketing communication. I think Mark and I have said that to each other a couple of times as we’ve been doing this.

 

Yeah. So if you imagine that they’ve got a product, they’ve got a deck, they’ve got all those things, there’s a story to be told. And for somebody developing and has their, they want their baby to grow to a full grown adult at some point, meaning a successful product, there has to be a brand story that is really the baseline for the entire presentation.

 

There has to be something they can be passionate about and they can talk to. Because it’s important that they’re able to talk to it. Because at the end of the day, you’re selling to an investor. They’ve got to feel that they’re going to come away in the long run making their money, making their money back.

 

Alison 

You talked a little bit earlier about how you know, you’ve watched a lot of pitches from doctors for their products. What are the things that you know, you’ve seen them do that you’re like, that’s not going to work or that’s handicapping you down the way you talked a little bit about that, but I’d like to see if you could go a little bit further into the mistakes you’ve seen.

 

Michael Ventriello

Well, I think from a copywriter point of view, no, it’s the clarity of the message. Yes, there’s the brand story, but how do you execute upon that? So, you know, when you’re saying things in PowerPoint slides, how do you distill that in a form that’s easy to comprehend and retain?

 

Retention is important too. And, you know, that’s throughout the deck. You have to make a case for it. You know, that’s where the choice of words, how you use them, and the economy  of language is always important. We’ve always, you know, we remember sitting through what we call death by a thousand bullets kind of presentations. Those don’t resonate well. And then there’s the design aspects and I’m going to turn that over to Mark on that.

 

Mark Ross

Well, I think it just comes down to telling a compelling brand story. And the branding incorporates the visual part of the presentation, the verbal part of the presentation, and then the bones of the presentation, which is the product, the financials, the team, and all those things coming together. But how that story comes together and that common thread that takes a…

 

an investor through very quickly. They don’t want to see more than eight to 10 slides, 15 slides max. They’re not, they don’t have a lot of time. And sometimes they ask you to just send over what you have right now, maybe a one cheater or, or just five slides. And they can make a decision the same way somebody, you know, HR could look at a resume and it could just go in and out and that’s it. Cause they’re looking at hundreds and hundreds of presentations. So you’ve got to get, it’s got to be compelling and it’s got to be something that stands out against everything else. And so having the background of being participated in several pitches and seeing several pitches, it’s to our benefit that we can help or to a customer’s benefit that we can help them and guide them the right way and even, even connect them with others in the cycle of raising money. It could be a financial wizard that can help them work on their numbers. It could be venture capital firms who we’re closely associated with. There’s a lot of different elements we can bring to the table.

 

Michael Ventriello

I think another element of a successful pitch is who’s actually making the pitch? Who is going before the investors with the deck and is basically going to perform on behalf of the company, the founder, to really resonate with the investors? That may not be the founder and very often it shouldn’t be because they may not be personable. They might be geniuses, but they may not be great communicators.

 

So that’s important, you know, really select who is going to do the pitch. You know, you have the investor, the inventor, the developer on premises to field any questions that are very technical and that, you know, that’s very easy to moderate and monitor. And, but a lot of times that’s the Achilles heel, not having the right presenter.

 

Because if you’re thinking, if you’re an investor thinking about putting on money and the presentation by the inventor is just not there, it’s not compelling, you’re also going to judge them on whether they’re able to bring a team together and successfully get your product to market.

 

Alison

 I’d also imagine they’re judging them on whether they can make the decision to step aside and let someone who’s better at a different aspect of the business handle it.

 

Mark Ross

That’s an X factor that we always mention to clients that you’re better off having a piece of something that’s going to be successful and let somebody really take your product to market versus struggling because you don’t really have a business mentality.

 

Michael Ventriello

Yeah, and just to tie up the quality of the presenter, I have a background in computer software. And in that industry, a lot of companies had a high level executive called the chief evangelist. And that was a seed level executive. And that person’s job was to go before investors, industry analysts, maybe regulators, you know, what have you, make the pitch, do the presentation. And he had his backup team of, you know, the geeks and the nerds that developed the software and the product in case those questions really got granular in that way. But they were very, very charismatic people and that’s why they were in that position.

 

Alison 

Can you talk to me about why an orthodontic startup should work with an outside team to develop their strategy rather than keeping it all in-house? And I think you did talk a little bit about this before, but if you could go a little bit more on it.

 

Mark Ross

Well, we kind of touched on that. It’s having people that understand your industry. They know how to develop a compelling story. They have relationships with VCs, legal, the media, understanding the best way to structure a pitch deck. All those things come together.

 

Michael Ventriello

Yeah. And some companies or founders are coming from outside of dental. So they might have a pretty mature team, a company, but as they go into a new vertical and they say, you know what, we have this AI insurance validation application that we’ve been using in medical and we want to launch it into dentistry.

 

And they’re more dissimilar industries than a lot of outsiders think. They’re not the same.

 

Mark Ross

The dental industry is so nuanced like no other. And not having a true understanding of the mindset of influencers in the industry, the buyers in the industry, workflow within practices, because if it’s a product that’s being sold into the practice, that’s very, very important to understand that dynamic.

 

Michael Ventriello

And another scenario that I’ve seen quite often is a company will think they’re going into the major leagues by hiring a firm or a consultant that specializes in medical. And that’s not the case. So, you know, you’re better off vetting the consultant or agency that you’re going to work for when you’re evaluating them.

 

Like what do they know about this industry? You know, can they walk into this and like on a dime introduce me to who I need to be introduced to, you know, recognize the key opinion leaders, the key distributors, what meetings I should go to without me paying them to basically finance their learning curve, which is gonna happen if you don’t make that decision.

 

Alison 

Okay, are there any other tips you have for orthodontists as they are looking for an agency to work with? Because those are some really good tips that you just gave. Is there anything else that stands out to you?

 

Mark Ross

I think research into your marketplace is very important before you even reach out to anybody.

 

You need to have a handle on it yourself. Regardless of your background or your expertise as an orthodontist, and you may think you know what other orthodontists are thinking or other practices need, it’s important to try to understand as deeply as possible where it fits in. What is that unique selling proposition? All these little things are really key. If you have a good handle on that. And then you sit down with a team like PitchIt DDS and it’s important because it speeds up the process. The research I think is really, really key.

 

Michael Ventriello 

I think that’s the best way to do it.

 

Alison

Well, Mike and Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to talk us through this. And it’s a really interesting pathway for, yeah. It’s really interesting that, you know, there’s so much innovation and there’s so many opportunities. 

Michael Ventriello

And I hope this is valuable to the viewers of the podcast, the readers of the magazine and the website. And if they have any questions, Mark and I are available. But hopefully this has been useful.

 

Alison

Yeah, and if they do want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to do that?

 

Mark Ross 

You could go to v -d -t .com. That’s the VDT main website right now. So v-d-t.com. And by the way, I just want to say that we’re happy to offer some time at no charge to learn a little bit more about a product and help them and guide them.

 

Alison

Great. Well, I’m sure our listeners will appreciate that. So thank you again so much. I really appreciate it.

 

Michael Ventriello

Thank you.

 

Mark Ross

All right. Thanks.