Founders: have you ever watched yourself pitch? Peyton Manning spent 20 hours a week watching game film. Here’s what you can learn from him…

Careful study of game film gave Manning a huge advantage. But when most founders pitch investors, they just do meeting after meeting with little idea how they performed. 

How to Use Game Film

Here’s how founders can use game film to get an edge…

1. Get the right tech. I record every single meeting I do using a tool called Fathom. It’s free and easy to use.
   
2. Replay key meetings. You don’t have to re-watch every meeting you do. But re-watching some important meetings shortly afterward, while they’re fresh in your mind, can help you a lot.
   
3. Are you talking too much? Fathom shows you the exact percentage of time you spoke. In my experience, fundraising meetings go best when the founder speaks about 60% of the time and the investor speaks around 40%. Most founders talk way more than that. That’s a mistake — it doesn’t allow investors enough time to ask questions.
   
4. Look at the investor’s body language. Are they leaning forward with interest? Are their arms crossed in a defensive or skeptical pose? This tells you how they’re receiving your message.
   
5. Ask AI for help. Fathom lets you easily copy the full transcript of your meeting. Dump that transcript into Grok or ChatGPT. Prompt it like this: “I’m a startup founder pitching an investor. Here’s a transcript of a meeting. How can I improve my pitch?”

Investors Should Be Watching Game Film Too!

I watch game film of my most important founder meetings. 

When there’s a company I’m really interested in, I re-watch our call after so I can pick up on any details I may have missed. And sometimes, I dump the transcript into Grok and ask how I can improve.

Grok told me to be more explicit about what I liked when I meet a startup. Sometimes I’m so eager to ask question after question that I forget to do that!

Wrap-Up

Pitching is a skill. Like any skill, you get better with practice.

Watching yourself is one of the best ways to learn. You see what you do well and what you do poorly.

Whether you’re Peyton Manning, a startup founder, or me, watching game film gives you an advantage. Your competitors aren’t doing it. 

Press that advantage and raise more money!

More on tech: 

Why Short Decks Raise Millions

How to Run a Pitch Meeting

How to Tell If Investors Are Really Interested

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