First investor meeting
Thirty minutes on their calendar. They've barely opened your deck.
● Dave Wolovsky · StartX Mentor
Private Pitch Clinic
How's your 30-second pitch?
Are investors and customers listening or checking their watch?
Book My Private Pitch Clinic- ✓ 60 minutes 1 on 1, by Zoom or in person in NYC (pending availability)
- ✓ Leave with a 30-second pitch ready for a room of investors
- ✓ Practice answering investor questions
- ✓ BONUS: 30-minute follow-up to make sure you get results
"Working with Dave was one of the best coaching experiences I've ever had."
Aaron Davis, CTO & Senior Software Engineer · ★★★★★ LinkedIn ↗
Your first 30 seconds matter
Every one of these starts with “What do you do?”
Warm intros
You meet someone who has connections. Can you immediately convince them to take a risk on you?
Accelerator interviews
About 10 minutes, and the questions come fast. A bad first answer means they're not listening to the rest.
Demo day
You get a minute or two on stage. The room decides who they want to talk to after.
Customer calls
A prospect gave you the meeting. If the opening is fuzzy, it turns into a polite no.
Hiring
Your best candidate has two other offers. How you describe the company is part of how they decide.
Why it comes out wrong
The perfect pitch has the right level of nuance.
When every detail feels important, you say it all. When you dumb it down too much, you sound ignorant. You've got 3 seconds to guage the right level for your listener, and 30 seconds to gain their interest.
You ramble
You start with the backstory and the market. They're still waiting to hear what you actually do.
You sound rehearsed
You tried to memorize too much. It comes out flat, and it falls apart the second they interrupt.
You tighten up
Your stomach drops when they ask. You rush, and you come across less sure than you are.
Spend all night working on your pitch with AI, and you still won't know if it's ready. Or you can fix it in 60 minutes with a human coach.
The Private Pitch Clinic
One hour. You do most of the talking.
60 minutes, 1:1, on Zoom or in person in NYC (pending availability). No slides. You leave with an opening you've already said out loud a dozen times.
Pitch it cold
First 10 minutesI ask you what your company does, the way someone would at an event. You answer the way you do now. I tell you exactly where I lost the thread.
Rebuild it
Next 25 minutesWe cut it down to what the company does, why it matters now, and one number worth asking about. You get bullet points to talk from, not a script.
Rehearse it
Last 25 minutesOut loud, again and again, with me interrupting the way investors do. Then the questions they ask first, until your answers come out short and direct.
If your body tightens up, we don't try to calm it down. We use it.
The follow-up
The real test is the first time you use it. So we meet again after.
Before you leave, we book a 30-minute follow-up within 7 days. In between, you record your 30 seconds in one take and use it at least once for real.
Then we go through the video and what happened when you said it, and we fix whatever didn't land.
A pitch you've only said to me is still a guess. The follow-up is where we find out if it works.
Why me
I'm quiet and anxious. So I had to work twice as hard to think straight in the spotlight.
I was homeschooled until I was 13. I grew up a quiet, empathic introvert, the kind who waits to be asked instead of speaking up.
At 25, I stood in front of 50 parents to present on topics I knew inside out: math, psychology, the brain. I had prepared. Rehearsed. I knew my material.
And I was shaking.
The moment I felt nervous, everything got wrapped in a story: If I'm too nervous, I'm gonna blow it. So I stopped presenting my material and started managing my nervousness. I'd scan the room to see if they could tell. I'd lose my thread mid-sentence.
What I learned
Calming down never worked for me. What worked was learning to stay in my own body long enough to keep my thoughts straight. For someone wired like me, that took twice the practice.
Then I studied why it works. My master's at Columbia is in neuroscience and education: how the brain takes in information and holds onto it. It's why your 30 seconds end up as one clear picture and one number, instead of everything you've built.
Since 2018, I've coached 100+ people one-on-one through the moments where they have to talk about themselves under pressure, from job interviews to raise conversations. “So, what does your company do?” is the founder version of “Tell me about yourself.”
If you get quiet or nervous when the spotlight's on, you're exactly who I built this for.
Book it
Next time someone asks what you do, have the answer ready.
Private Pitch Clinic · Your opening 30 seconds
$180
60-minute session
+ 30-minute follow-up
+ 30-minute follow-up
- ✓ Your opening 30 seconds, rebuilt and rehearsed out loud
- ✓ Bullet points to talk from, not a script
- ✓ Practice with the questions investors ask first
- ✓ A 30-minute follow-up within 7 days, after you've used it for real
- ✓ On Zoom, or in person in NYC (pending availability)
- ✓ Full refund if you don't leave with a pitch you love
Client Stories
What people say
What people say
about Dave's work.
★★★★★
"This works! Dave walked me through the pre-presentation jitters and I showed up calmer than I ever had before."
★★★★★
"Dave helped me gain clarity in my hang-up around charging for my services. He has you stop and breathe, so you can speak from a place of groundedness."
Sandra Menzies, MS, ICF-PCC
International Speaker · Executive Coach
★★★★★
"Thanks to his support, I've become more confident in my personal value and brand."
Danielle Spencer
Enterprise Revenue & Payer Strategy Executive
★★★★★
"I came out of our session with great insight and a solid action plan tailored to my needs."
Nael Abdelsamad, MD, MBA
Director of Research, Cleveland Clinic
★★★★★
"Working with Dave was phenomenal. He helped me channel my skills into a workable and realistic plan."
Nick Tortorici
Sr. Manager, LyondellBasell
★★★★★
"Working with Dave was one of the best things I did for my career. His approach was super collaborative."
Jacqueline Dion
Senior Manager, Creative Marketing
Questions
A few quick answers.
1
"Should I bring my deck?"
No. This hour is about what you say before anyone opens a deck: you, talking, the way you would when someone asks at an event. Bring whatever you say now when someone asks what your company does. Deck reviews come later, if we keep working together.
2
"You don't know my industry. Can you still help?"
Yes. Plenty of the people you pitch won't know your industry either. If I can't follow it, they probably can't, and that's exactly what we fix.
3
"Is this about nerves or about the words?"
Mostly the words: what you say, in what order, and what you leave out. If nerves show up while you rehearse, we work with them too. We just don't try to calm you down.
4
"Can we meet in person?"
Yes, in NYC, usually at Fabrik in Dumbo, pending availability. Book a time on the calendar and note that you'd like to meet in person. I'll confirm, or we'll do it on Zoom.
5
"What happens at the follow-up?"
You bring a one-take video of your 30 seconds and what happened when you used it. We fix whatever didn't land. If you want help with your longer pitch, your deck, or investor Q&A after that, I'll show you how we'd keep going, and your $180 counts toward it.
6
"What if it doesn't help?"
Full refund if you don't leave with a 30-second pitch you love.
Private Pitch Clinic
Pitching investors soon?
Pitching investors soon?
Fix your first 30 seconds.
One hour to rebuild and rehearse it, and a follow-up after you've used it for real.
Book your Private Pitch Clinic · $180Coaching is not a substitute for therapy or mental health treatment.