Have you wondered how to attract real sponsors? Melinda Colaizzi knows that business. She’s the principal at Pitch Consulting, the founder of the Women Who Rock festival, and she’s an accomplished musician herself. This week, Scot attempts to make the most of all the expertise Melinda brings into the studio. Their conversation includes strategies for selling sponsorships, the hard shift toward buying local, and the reputation the Magee-Womens Research Institute has built that makes it the perfect beneficiary of the proceeds from the Women Who Rock event.
Women Who Rock Benefit Concert: May 10, 2018 at Pittsburgh’s Hard Rock Cafe. More information at womenwhorockpgh.com
This week’s show proves that no matter what field you’re in, it has a lot of parallels with other fields. Our guests for this episode are Alyssa and Don from SciVelo, a unique organization affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. SciVelo calls their work “commercial translation” - and it’s not what you think. Rather than translating between spoken languages, SciVelo translates the work of one set of professionals for use by others, specializing in the research work done at Pitt. Pitchwerks listeners should hear a number of interesting things, especially how the SciVelo team organizes its inventory, its prospects and its opportunities like any other business.
This week on The Pitchwerks Podcast we’ve got three young men working to save the world - Tanner Cook, Grant Halleran and Aakash Pathak from CleanRobotics. Together with host Scot MacTaggart, the team analyzes buyer motivations, end user education, and a two-tiered demonstration strategy for their product, Trashbot. Trashbot solves a problem you might not even know that you have - the complexity of proper recycling - by analyzing waste and sending it automatically to the landfill or the recycling plant based on a number of factors.
AMAZINGLY sharp conversationalist Priya Amin comes into the studio this week, prepping for an investor pitch competition and talking about Flexable, the startup that she and cofounder Jessica Strong have grown into a common presence at major employers and events in Pittsburgh. This episode was recorded just before Priya left for the New England Venture Fair, so she and Scot work on her NEVF investor pitch a little bit, while also making time to discuss cofounder relationships and expansion strategy.