It was finally the day we have to pitch our business ideas. Some of our group members were so excited that they could not sleep well the night before. All of us have been putting a lot of effort in this so that we can stand a better chance to enter the top 10 teams. Upon arrival at The STAR Cybertorium, we saw quite a few of our friends which are already there. We got to know these friends from the YES Red Carpet Party and also the 1-Day Entrepreneurship training held by MoneyTree. Once again, MoneyTree has given us the opportunity to widen our network. We had a little chit chat and photo taking session before the Breakthrough Session officially starts.

When it was time, all of us were asked to remain in a hall until it was our turn to pitch. As we are the 7th team, we still had time to go through our elevator pitch for another few more rounds. However, all of us felt that we should actually relax ourselves before going up to the stage. Therefore, we only rehearsed once. The rest of the time we were practically joking around. It was clear to us that the environment inside the hall was really tense because we could see other teams sitting in the form of a circle practicing their elevator pitch over and over again.

Finally, it was our turn to pitch our business ideas. The team before us was still answering the questions that the judges asked when we enter the cybertorium. One of our group members actually looked pretty nervous once she stepped into the cybertorium. Ms. Evelyn Reyes was kind enough to give the particular group member some moral support. She told her to take it easy because after all, the audiences are just human like all of us and they are not going to bite us. We really appreciate Ms. Evelyn Reyes’s help because we felt motivated at the same time.

Our team managed to deliver the information that what we wanted to the audiences. The bell went off just when we were saying thank you. It was quite a shocking moment for us because initially we thought that we will not be able to finish what we wanted to say. Despite all these, we cannot deny the fact that our presentation has some flaws where some of us talked too fast and some of us paused for awhile to think how we should continue from our last sentence. Our respond to the judges’ questions was fast. We were actually quite happy and proud of ourselves.

Some of the teams left after they have done their presentation. However, our team decided to stay back to listen to what the afternoon session teams could offer. We were glad that we stayed because we found some of the team’s business ideas fascinating. One thing that we observed was that the judges for the afternoon session were asking more questions compared to the morning session’s judges. We can say that we are lucky because we can actually tackle some of the questions that we might be asked in the future.

After all the teams have pitched their business ideas, we went to talk to some of the judges to get some feedbacks from them. We were glad we met new people during the Breakthrough Session. We have added some of the judges such as Mr. Neil, Dr. Siva, Mr. Gerald and Mr. Roslan on Facebook so we could keep in touch with them. Who knows we might actually need their help someday. After all, they have the knowledge and experience that we do not have. It is good to be able to learn from them.

Lastly, our team would like to thank our friends that came to support us during the Breakthrough Session. It was pleasurable to have you guys there. Do continue supporting MallEzy =)

The key to a perfect presentation is to practice until you get it right. Another thing is to familiarize yourself with the information that you will be addressing to your audiences. We have been practicing very hard since the day Mr. Wong Yu Vee announced that all the teams will be pitching their ideas in the Breakthrough Session.

When we first joined Maybank Moneytree YES Challenge 2, we were asked to send in our elevator pitch. As we continued expanding our ideas, we found out that the initial elevator pitch can no longer be used. Therefore, we spent some time constructing a brand new elevator pitch. It was hard for us as we need to put in a lot of details within the 2 minutes elevator pitch. Apart from that, it was a challenge for us to find the right words to use in order to be able to deliver the information we want to the audiences.

We have decided to split the elevator pitch into four sections. Each of us will be talking on one section. When we first started rehearsing, we did not manage to speak fluently. As we go along, we managed to figure out how to pitch our business ideas. We tried using different voice tones and different body postures.

Constant eye contact with your audiences is one of the things that we have learnt from making presentations in university. Therefore, we took turns to sit down and listen to each other’s presentation. We pointed out the weaknesses and errors that are made and suggested ways to help each other perform better. We were quite satisfied at the end of the day because we think we have improved if we compare the way we presented at the beginning of the rehearsal.

We in MallEzy believe that most people have gone through internship when they are still pursuing their studies. People gained knowledge and experience through internship. Another thing that we cannot deny is that we might meet nice people out there which will eventually help us out one day when you need them. Mr. Eric is one of the examples. He is currently working as a Public Relationship Manager in an advertising firm. We thought that he will be a good choice to review our elevator pitch. This is because he has written quite a number of speeches for events organized by the clients of the advertising firm. He must have acquired a certain amount of skills in writing speeches.

We first started off by pitching our business idea to him. After that, we gave him to have a look at our executive summary. The purpose of us doing this is to see if the idea that he have in mind when he is listening to our pitch is the same as the idea written in the executive summary. We were quite happy when we got his feedback as he said our elevator pitch consists most of the ideas that we have presented in our executive summary.

Mr. Eric gave us his opinion regarding MallEzy’s targeted segment. He questioned us why we are narrowing our market to only shops in shopping malls. We further explain the reasons behind this to him and he agrees at it to a certain extent. He suggested that we could actually widen our targeted segments in the future. He also provided us with a few suggestions regarding the delivery service that MallEzy offers, MallEzy taglines and ways to approach the management of the shopping malls / shops.

Besides that, we also consulted another lecturer of ours, Mr. Mahathir which previously worked as a bank manager. He suggested that we should put more focus on advertising the shops in the shopping malls rather than the products sold by the shops. This is because the details of the product can be easily found through the use of search engines. Therefore, it is pointless for us to do extra work and compete with the search engines. Apart from that, he advised us to set up the online transaction service provided to users step by step. Last but not least, he reminded us that MallEzy’s website should be kept simple and effective.

Breakthrough Session. In this session, all teams are required to present their elevator pitch. We felt a sudden pressure when we know about this because it means extra work load will be coming in. Another thing is that two of the MallEzy founders will be rushing their last assignment for the year. Therefore we think that time is really not enough and we got to manage our time smartly.

The details of the Breakthrough Session are as below:

Date: 13th March 2010
Time: 10.00am - 4.30pm
Venue: The STAR Cybertorium, Level 2, Menara The Star, 15, Jalan 16/11, PJ
Attire: Business Wear

There will be 31 teams presenting their elevator pitch and only 10 teams will be selected to proceed to the next level of the competition. All teams will be given 120 seconds and 2 questions will be asked by the judges. It will be an interesting and eye opening session because audiences can listen to different ideas. If you are interested to witness the teams battle it out against each other, kindly write to Mr. Wong Yu Vee at uvwong@moneytree.com. Only 15 seats will be allocated to each Uni / College. So if you do not want to miss the opportunity, write in now to reserve your seats! For those who have already reserve their seats, remember to support us, MallEzy!