The Successful Pitch: Conversations About Going from Invisible to Investable

As a funding strategist, John Livesay helps CEOs craft a compelling pitch that engages investors in a way that inspires them to join a startup's team. He is partners with Judy Robinett in Crack the Funding Code which gets founders funded fast. He hosts "The Successful Pitch" podcast with investors from around the world. He is the Pitch Mentor at Startfast.net, the number one accelerator in Upstate New York. After a successful twenty year career in media sales with Conde Nast where he worked across all twenty-two brands in their corporate division, John was named Salesperson of the Year in 2012. The way he was able to win that award was through creating a collaborative partnership with Guess jeans that resulted in a joint anniversary celebration for both Guess 30th and W magazine's 40th. Images of celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, who appeared on the cover W and was a Guess model, were shown at an event celebrating both brands' anniversary. The press generated from this event, along with the exclusive insert of thirty pages of Guess models bundled with W's anniversary issue, made for an unprecedented partnership that was a win-win for both brands. John has appeared in INC. magazine and on CBS News and "Talk of the Town" as a confidence expert and the media has called him "The Pitch Whisperer."

Judy Robinett is the author of How to Be a Power Connector: The 5-50-150 Rule, to be released by McGraw-Hill in May, 2014. Robinett is a business thought leader who is known as "the woman with the titanium digital Rolodex." She has been profiled in Forbes, Venture Beat, Huffington Post, and Bloomberg Businessweek as a sterling example of the new breed of "super connectors" who use their experience and networks to accelerate growth and enhance profitability.