Inside Pitch Night and Investor Roulette

For a lot of first-time founders, “talking to investors” sits in this strange future fantasy.

The voice in your head is like "I'll do it once your deck is perfect", "once my product is finished", "once my metrics look impressive enough to justify the conversation."

AND THEN 6 mths have passed and you actually haven't ticked off any of those goals

The real danger is that by waiting, you miss the chance to learn how investors think while you’re still shaping your idea. Early conversations aren’t about raising money; they’re about replacing your guesses with real signals.

Launch Club is designed to break the pattern of founders hiding until they feel ready. Two experiences inside the program do the heavy lifting: Investor Roulette and Pitch Night. Both give you early, low-stakes time with investors, without pretending you need to have everything figured out.

What is Investor Roulette? 🃏🎡

Investor Roulette is exactly what it sounds like: short, focused conversations with angel investors and VCs who are used to meeting founders at the messy idea stage. It’s closer to speed-dating than formal pitching: you sit down with an investor, share the problem you’re working on, talk through your early progress, answer a few questions, and then rotate to someone new.

You’re not there to “close a round” or convince anyone to write a cheque. You’re there to see which parts of your story land, which parts confuse people, and which assumptions crumble when tested against someone who hears thousands of pitches a year.

For many Launch Club founders, it’s the first time they’ve said their idea out loud to someone outside their friendship circle. It’s nerve-wracking in the way most worthwhile reps are, and it’s invaluable.

You quickly learn things you cannot learn alone: maybe your “one sentence pitch” is too vague. Maybe your solution is compelling but your customer segment is too broad. Maybe your product sounds technically impressive but the value isn’t obvious. Or maybe your next milestone makes perfect sense to you but sounds arbitrary to an outsider. These small shocks are good, they sharpen the work.

Early investor conversations don’t fix your startup. They stop you guessing.

How Pitch Night fits into the journey 🎤🎭

If Investor Roulette is the rehearsal space, Pitch Night is your first real stage. At the end of Launch Club, founders present what they’ve built over eight weeks to a room full of founders, operators, mentors, and investors who are actively scouting new talent.

Each person shares the problem they’re solving, the customer behavior they’ve observed, how their solution has evolved through the program, and whatever early traction they’ve managed to pull together, no matter how small. The point isn’t to pretend you’re a late-stage startup. It’s to clearly show your progress and the clarity you’ve earned.

Pitch Night is also where founders have the chance to win an interview with the Startmate team for the Accelerator (aka. $125K investment into your startup). For some people, it becomes their first external capital and their first real signal that their idea is becoming a company.

Most founders don’t feel ready to pitch. That’s kind of the point. The eight weeks leading up to Pitch Night are designed to make you feel ready enough. By then, you’ve talked to enough customers that your problem story feels lived rather than theoretical, you’ve built an MVP that exists outside your head, and you’ve refined your narrative to the point where others understand why it matters.

Pitch Night isn’t a final exam it’s like a line in the sand: “Here’s what I’ve built so far, and here’s where I’m going next.”

Why early investor exposure matters so much in ANZ

In bigger ecosystems, founders might casually bump into investors at meetups or coworking spaces. In ANZ, those conversations don’t quite look the same (unless you put yourself out there). The pathways into conversations can feel opaque, club-like or reserved for founders who already know someone.

Launch Club cuts through that by bringing early-stage investors directly into the program, creating settings where being early is normal, and giving investors a front-row seat to founders well before they hit the Accelerator stage. Founders don’t just get practice, they start relationships. Later, when they apply to the Startmate Accelerator or raise their first round, they’re not cold names in an inbox.

This is especially powerful for founders who haven’t grown up in Silicon Valley culture, where investor interactions start early and happen often. Launch Club levels that playing field.

How to get the most from Investor Roulette and Pitch Night

Wherever you end up speaking to investors, in Launch Club or elsewhere, a few behaviours make those conversations far more valuable.

• Prepare a version of your story you can deliver in 60–90 seconds. Clarity beats detail.
• Listen more than you defend; you don’t have to agree, but try to understand the reaction.
• Ask one or two pointed questions that move the conversation forward, such as, “What would you need to see in the next six months to believe more in this?”
• Follow up if someone shows interest. A short update demonstrating what you actioned based on feedback goes a very long way.

These habits build a reputation as a founder who learns quickly and executes, which is exactly what investors want to see at this stage.

There will be plenty of intense investor meetings in your future if you choose the venture path. Your earliest ones don’t need to be high-stakes or adversarial. Launch Club gives you a safe way to practise how you talk about your company, hear honest reactions from people who see a lot of startups, and build confidence (whether your idea stays as it is or evolves into something else entirely).

For founders in ANZ, where early investor access isn’t always obvious, this kind of exposure is a serious advantage.

If you know investor conversations are in your future, you can wait until you feel “ready” orrrrr you can get your first reps in now.

Ready to take the leap? ‍

Get your application in for Launch Club

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