The evaluate phase of our project, like the prototyping phase, was unlike any process that I had been used to previously. Getting feedback in the middle of the project was an action that I had never had during my time in the business school. The pitching was also something that we may be used to in the business school, but not in the setting we had during our pitch day. Overall, the process was extremely worthwhile, and I loved the opportunity to understand what it truly meant to pitch an idea to someone.
Pitching and receiving feedback in the group setting was amazing. In most marketing classes, people are not getting that type of experience. Trying to understand all perspectives of someone’s project also helped us for the future for pitches in general. Knowing what people want in terms of pitches was figured out during this process, and I loved talking to other people in the class. Since there was another airline group, it was nice not being paired up with them because our ideas turned out to be very similar, and getting another perspective on the industry was key. They gave us ideas that we really never had thought of before. That is the biggest problem when doing projects like this one. You get so entrenched in the industry and your product that you tend to talk in circles about the same ideas. Your ideas tend to be repetitive, and the groupthink comes into play all the time. In the group feedback stage, people are coming into this pitch with an entirely fresh set of eyes, and they have not even considered the industry you are taking on. People always have different experience in the specific industry, and we are basing it on our four experiences with airlines. Hearing various experiences gives us a way to pivot our idea to better suit those people as well. Additionally, with our board design, we went into the first pitch day with the other group trying to figure out what we wanted to put on our board. Learning about what are the biggest parts of our product that people liked allowed us to know what to put on each of the boards. Looking at other boards on that Thursday challenged our idea, even if that meant they were in a different industry. It changed the way we thought about our product, and made us realize that our product could be improved in different ways. Instead of thinking about our product within the industry, we thought about it from a global perspective, and that is how the boards and talking with other groups helped. It gave us an experience that we never have received in the business school before. The feedback is critical at any point in the product life cycle, and it helps the product succeed. For the pitch day specifically, I want this type of setting in all of my classes. It gave innovation a whole new meaning to me. When you hear about innovation, you think it is just a new idea, but it is so much more than just creating an idea. It helped me really consider what I wanted to do after school, instead of just taking the normal next step of taking a job. The skills I learned from pitch day gave me very valuable skills in my life, and I learned more skills on how to develop a pitch and talk on my feet. Overall, the pitch day was fantastic, and I want something like that to be implemented for all of my business school classes. The values and skills I took from the process will stick with me for the rest of my life.
However, every product or idea has a few problems that come along the way. Although this process had very few problems, the main one I ran into was the amount of downtime between pitches that I had. This problem may have been a result of the amount of people in each class and the influx of people during the pitching, but I found myself waiting for people to come a lot. It felt very awkward and I wish I could learn how to develop my pitch during that time. Of course, it was nice to be able to relax and think about my pitch in my head, but it would be nice to have an EP critique my pitch as well. Generally, they were just critiquing my product and the idea, which was the point of them coming. But, having feedback on my pitch as opposed to the product may have allowed me to help them understand better what our product was all about. Some of the time I did not know if I said something wrong or if it did not make sense, and that usually comes with time. However, getting someone to be with our group during the process and tell us what to improve on our pitches would be great. Aside from the amount of downtime we had, this process was still fantastic and I would absolutely do it again.
This process gave me real world experience that will be incredibly valuable for the rest of my life. Being able to pitch effectively is a skill that most people coming out of college do not have. Usually, you can present when you know your stuff very well, and that is a craft that the business school has perfected in us. This process is different however, because you are trying to get people to buy into the idea of your product. Our pitch was about a tangible product, not just presenting an idea. Developing your pitch overtime is another idea that I had not thought of before. You may say your pitch to one person and it makes sense for them, but presenting to another group of people you may have to focus on entirely different things. For example, presenting to an EP you want to be more specific in giving examples because they may not understand a technological product as well as a student. Pitching to an EP is entirely different than pitching to a student. Therefore, learning how to develop a pitch and create one will set me up well down the line for when I enter the workforce, and I will always think back to this pitch day when I have to pitch an idea to my superior.