pitching matters as much as product

what happened

you can have shit product but pitch much above average and still win. watched teams with worse projects win because they presented better.

why it's a gotcha

builders tend to think the work speaks for itself. it doesn't. judges have limited time and attention. a great pitch makes a mediocre project look good; a bad pitch makes a great project look forgettable.

the fix

allocate real time to the pitch — not just the last 20 minutes. assign your best communicator to lead the presentation — if your team is all coders with no communicator, you have a problem. practice the narrative: problem -> solution -> demo -> impact. frame impact explicitly, memorize your one-liner, and make the demo the core of the pitch. even one dry run makes a massive difference.