Episode Summary

If you have to pitch the same product to two totally different audiences, should you use one deck or two?

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones is joined by Michelle Chen, founder of Mental Jam, a startup turning real lived experiences of depression and anxiety into cozy, story-driven mobile games. Michelle is preparing to pitch in two worlds at once: to investors who care about venture-scale growth, and to game publishers who care about commercial upside and licensing rights.

Alan breaks down why one pitch is rarely enough, and introduces a simple framework: three decks for each audience. A teaser deck to spark curiosity, a pitch deck to support your live story, and a leave-behind deck packed with detail for later review. They also get tactical about what makes a pitch land: fewer words on slides, stronger emotional delivery in the first 10 to 15 seconds, and building trust by keeping the audience focused on the founder, not the deck.

Michelle also shares the real nerves behind pitching, including stage anxiety and how it impacts performance. Alan offers a mindset shift that helps founders separate their personal fear from the “role” they’re playing on stage, plus practical tips for pitching on video calls. They finish with concrete improvements: shorten the character section, add a clear team slide, and capture customer reactions on video to show emotional impact, not just quotes.

If you’re pitching a product with multiple buyers, fundraising while still building, or struggling with confidence on stage, this episode is a masterclass in making your pitch clearer, shorter, and more human

Time Stamps

02:10 – Michelle’s origin story: from PhD research to startup

04:10 – Why Catalyzer mattered for a migrant founder

05:20 – Two audiences: investors vs game publishers

06:05 – Should you build two pitches? Alan’s answer: yes, tailor

08:05 – The 6 deck framework: teaser, pitch, leave-behind for each audience

13:05 – Ideal slide counts: teaser 3 to 5, pitch 10 to 15, leave-behind as needed

14:00 – Why founders accidentally read slides and lose the room

15:00 – Video call tip: pin the person, not your slides

16:15 – Michelle’s pitch: Mental Jam and Boba Rista

23:15 – Alan’s feedback: scripting, emotion, and the first 10 seconds

26:00 – Handling stage anxiety while pitching

29:20 – Cut words per slide: aim for fewer than 10 words

31:10 – Too many characters: use one or two for investors

31:40 – Add a team slide and show real customer feedback

33:00 – Use video testimonials for emotional proof

Resources Mentioned

🎮 Mental Jam – https://hellomentaljam.com

🎙 Ask Alan a Question – https://speakpipe.com/pickmybrain

🎧 More from Alan Jones – https://www.startupfoundercoach.com

Galah Cyber offers the Foundations of Application Security course: a practical, hands-on AppSec course built for engineers who actually ship code. Two days of real-world lessons you can apply immediately. Learn more at galahcyber.com.au/learn.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.

What if your designers, PMs, and writers could safely ship changes to a codebase without waiting weeks for engineering backlog?

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones is joined by Dan Borthwick, founder of NiceGit, a startup rethinking source control for the reality of modern product teams. Dan pitches NiceGit as a single button way to use Git, keeping the power of version control while stripping away the terminal commands, scary UI, and workflow friction that locks non engineers out of making changes.

Alan and Dan unpack why Git has become a productivity bottleneck as more of the world builds software, especially now that over half of GitHub’s users are not programmers. They explore the hidden cost of routing every small change through developers, from UX tweaks to copy updates, and why “good enough” often wins simply because teams cannot afford the delays.

They also go deep on go to market strategy for technical products, including why engineers resist traditional marketing, how Atlassian used meetups and peer conversations to grow early, and how to think about whether you are selling a headache pill or a vitamin pill. Dan shares why game studios may be the ideal beachhead, how inbound interest is already forming through LinkedIn, and why team leads are often the real buyer even when end users feel the pain.

Along the way, Alan offers practical guidance on positioning, taglines, multivariate testing messaging, and how to equip champions inside an organisation with the right “cheat sheet” to win internal buy in. They finish with sharp, Australia specific advice on fundraising timing, investor targeting, and why warm coffee conversations beat sending a deck too early.

If you are building B2B SaaS, developer tools, or selling into teams with multiple stakeholders, this episode is packed with practical insight you can use immediately.

Galah Cyber offers the Foundations of Application Security course: a practical, hands-on AppSec course built for engineers who actually ship code. Two days of real-world lessons you can apply immediately. Learn more at galahcyber.com.au/learn.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.

What do you do when your life story suddenly stops making sense?

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones speaks with Clement Baissat, founder of mental wellbeing startup Hope Stage, about a journey that doesn’t follow the usual startup narrative. It begins with ambition and company building, then runs into depression, bankruptcy, and a bipolar diagnosis that arrives with clarity, but no instructions.

Clement shares growing up in France, knowing early that he wanted to build things on his own terms, and then spending years moving through startups, jobs, and burnout without understanding the patterns behind his highs and lows. A walk through a Paris park, a phone call to his mother, and two psychiatrists later, everything finally had a name. What remained unanswered was how to live with it.

That question became the foundation of Hope Stage. Not as a breakthrough moment, but as a practical attempt to understand bipolar disorder, build stability, and keep functioning. The conversation covers community, acceptance, routine, and the everyday systems that make progress possible, from sleep and structure to professional support. It also touches on why conditions like bipolar disorder and ADHD appear so often among founders.

As always, the discussion stays grounded and conversational. Alan brings curiosity and humour as they talk through business models, pricing, NGOs versus startups, and what it means to build something meaningful with limited resources.

This episode is about working with reality rather than fighting it, about replacing guesswork with systems, and about turning personal experience into something that may help others.

Galah Cyber offers the Foundations of Application Security course: a practical, hands-on AppSec course built for engineers who actually ship code. Two days of real-world lessons you can apply immediately. Learn more at galahcyber.com.au/learn.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.