Earlier this week I did my shortest investment pitch yet. The official length was 1 minute 40 seconds. This was part of an event in Atlanta called Startup Riot put on by the amazing Sanjay Parekh. Out of the 55 companies presenting, ours was one of the shortest. When pitching a space company you either end up very short or very long since explaining the details of the business generally requires non-trivial background material.

A little over a year ago we pitched at a New York Angels event and was limited to 5 minutes. In retrospect it would have been better to not try and cover ALL of the information possible in 5 minutes. Instead I should have slowed things down, even if it meant leaving a minute “on the table”.

For me this event was a particularly good one since it represents a growing community of entrepreneurs in the Atlanta area. Starting up any technology business can be a lonely and exhausting thing if you don’t have a support network of others who are going through the same thing. For the longest time Atlanta’s entrepreneurial community has been very disjointed and uncoordinated. Events such as Startup Riot, Startup Drinks, Startup Weekend, BarCamp Atlanta, and even Geeks and Guns (my little contribution) help create a sense of community and support that makes all of our jobs a tad bit easier and more enjoyable.