Graduate wins £1,000 prize after pitching to top businesses

An entrepreneurial graduate from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has won a £1,000 prize after making the best pitch to a roomful of the region’s top business people.



Derry Holt of Stormburst Studios beat four other hopefuls to the star prize in the contest, part of the VentureFest East Midlands gala night. Each contestant was challenged to make a two-minute pitch for their business, with the winners being judged via social media site Twitter.

The cash will go towards helping Derry and business partner James Heath set up an innovative gamification programme called Spirit – which they reckon could revolutionise sales teams by introducing a fun games element to the day job.

“I’m getting used to the pitches now to be honest!,” laughed Derry. “I’ve got our ‘elevator pitch’ memorised and we do one which was about 10 minutes so I wasn’t too fazed but we are still really pleased to win.”

“This was in front of about 120 business people, who were looking for the best ideas from early stage businesses. We won the Twitter vote from businesses that night, and we got quite a few people come up afterwards wanting to talk to us and giving us cards.”
 
As well as £1,000 cash Stormburst Studios also won a package of free PR and marketing expert advice from Holland Alexander, the team which organised VentureFest East Midlands.

It is not the first competition that Derry and James have won – in February the pair were awarded £6,000 by Entrepreneurial Spark - the world’s largest free business accelerator for early stage and growing ventures – to take their business to the next level.

Derry and James are part of DMU’s Crucible Project, set up to support and nurture graduates who want to set up their own companies.

There are 10 places up for grabs every year to join The Crucible Project – a 12-month business coaching programme which includes an £8,000 funding package.  Spirit is currently being trialled with three companies and will be launching as a pre-release version at the Sales Innovation Expo in May, with a full launch expected in August.