Episode 6: Transforming Startup Pitches That Connect with Jane Dashevsky

Apr 01, 2026

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Well, hello everyone. It's Melissa with the Mind Movie Makers podcast show and we are so happy to have you here with us. I'm very excited today because I'm going to have Jane Dashevsky the founder and CEO of The Starter Set, be one of our guests today. Hi Jane, how are you?

Jane, The Starter Set
Hi, I'm great. I'm so excited to be here to talk about the starter set and you know, the work that we did to prepare for the founders live pitch.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Yeah, let's talk about that. So that's how we met. I have...

In my work, I have the opportunity and the blessing, I would say, to meet lots of founders who are getting ready for their capital pitches. You know, they're raising their money. And that's how you and I met. You were in our December show and it was really fun to work with you.

And we also in this one, this particular show, we introduced my AI, Missy, to the founders to try and work with the Missy AI. So we'll kind of talk a little bit about that because we're trying to scale.

that can help more founders. There's like 150 cities across the globe that Founders Live is in.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
We'd love Melissa to be able to coach them all, but how are going to do that? Like, it's going to be a little hard. So we now have Missy AI that is trained in my book. She's built on Gemini so she can do all those administrative kind of chat features that people love.

But she's also trained in my voice and she speaks 10 languages. And so this is our opportunity to figure out how to bridge to those founders in those other countries that could be using the storyteller's Mind Movie method. So that's kind of like where we came from on this.

Jane, The Starter Set
Thanks.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
So talk to me about your journey even saying yes to doing this crazy 99 second business pitch competition. What was that like and how did that happen? And tell us about Starter Set obviously too.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah, sure. Well, I guess maybe I'll start with what the starter set is and what brought me to even being in a position to pitch and then the pitching journey.

So the starter set is a service that we are creating soon to launch in a few weeks that helps parents connect to personalized product choices for them. So we're starting by building a baby registry that's fully customized based on parent values and it's AI supported.

And so for example, like if you care about sustainability or luxury or anything in between, you get the full baby registry, all 80 products customized to you in just a matter of minutes, which is really a huge burden off parents who are having to spend like months putting together baby registries.

So, you know, I'm a parent myself and can attest to how long that process is and how long it took me and where this all even came from is from that journey as well.

But that's what brought me to pitching. I am working on setting up this service for parents and getting the word out there to people and figuring out how to tell that story most effectively.

I am terrified of public speaking. So one of the things that is good is to keep putting myself in the position to have to obviously get better at it, to tell that story.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
You're not alone. You're not alone.

Jane, The Starter Set
You know, that's why I was super interested in Founders Live. It's just another opportunity to figure out how to tell something concisely and how to get in front of people and how to connect with an audience.

So it seems like a great opportunity and I was really grateful to be featured as part of it.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
I love that. mean, that's what, I mean, being an entrepreneur and a founder is, it's a journey, right? It's a journey.

You got to yes and your way through the whole thing and it can be a twist and a turn and whatnot. And then you add public speaking apprehension on top of that.

You know, I'm proud of you for saying, I'm just got to keep doing it. I just got to keep doing it because I'll get better at it because I have to.

And that's growth, you know, like there's nothing wrong with anything you just said. That was, it's real and it's honest.

And that also, when I see someone

Jane, The Starter Set
Mm-hmm. yeah.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah. Yep.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
because this is what I do all day long, I see that and I go, you're coachable then.

You're coachable because you're open to like, hey, I don't know at all. I don't, you know, it's just, yeah.

All right, but you have your other strengths that you're very natural, right? Because your background, you were at Amazon. Tell us about your background and so how you got into saying, I'm gonna build this.

Jane, The Starter Set
Hi, I'm great. I'm so excited to be here to talk about the starter set and you know, the work that we did to prepare for the founders live pitch.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Yeah, let's talk about that. So that's how we met. I have...

that can help more founders. There's like 150 cities across the globe that Founders Live is in.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah.

Jane, The Starter Set
Thanks.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah, sure. Well, I guess maybe I'll start with what the starter set is and what brought me to even being in a position to pitch and then the pitching journey.

So, you know, I'm a parent myself and can attest to how long that process is and how long it took me and where this all even came from is from that journey as well.

But that's what brought me to pitching. I am working on setting up this service for parents and getting the word out there to people and figuring out how to tell that story most effectively.

I am terrified of public speaking. So one of the things that is good is to keep putting myself in the position to have to obviously get better at it, to tell that story.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
You're not alone. You're not alone.

So it seems like a great opportunity and I was really grateful to be featured as part of it.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
I love that. mean, that's what, I mean, being an entrepreneur and a founder is, it's a journey, right? It's a journey.

You got to yes and your way through the whole thing and it can be a twist and a turn and whatnot. And then you add public speaking apprehension on top of that.

You know, I'm proud of you for saying, I'm just got to keep doing it. I just got to keep doing it because I'll get better at it because I have to.

And that's growth, you know, like there's nothing wrong with anything you just said. That was, it's real and it's honest.

And that also, when I see someone

Jane, The Starter Set
Mm-hmm. yeah.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah. Yep.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
because this is what I do all day long, I see that and I go, you're coachable then.

You're coachable because you're open to like, hey, I don't know at all. I don't, you know, it's just, yeah.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
that's good. I mean, three is perfect, I think, because you have, are you doing like this price, this price, and this price? You know, like, could be.

Jane, The Starter Set
I mean, it can vary. either vary by price point or by features, but we do try to give it like a little bit of a different flavor.

We don't want you to get three of exactly the same thing that like creates the same decision fatigue you were having before.

But that match, you know, if you're not particularly concerned about a certain price point, then we'll give you three things in a similar price point, but that have slightly different features.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Okay, well so that's good. So you're reducing the stress and the time for these new parents to get everything together for their bouncing baby of joy that's on its way. That's good, that's good.

Okay, so now let's talk about the Founders Live pitch. So to the audience, they have 99 seconds, that's it. And they have slides, okay?

And so one of the things that is very important is, and I've talked about this, there's something called the Wonder Wander effect, and it's something I coined in my book.

and I am very vigilant about that when I'm coaching because I want the audience to be delighted and edutained by each speaker, right?

But one of the things that can really cause the wonder-wander effect to happen is too much copy, confusing images,

too much to read because what happens is that they're trying to listen to the speaker and then the slide comes up and if it's not really succinct, they will start to wonder what they're supposed to do and they'll start to wander away from listening and we don't want that.

We want 100 % listening skills going.

So what was that experience like for you coming forward? Because this is a fast pitch. This is not your average pitch.

Most people will say a fast pitch is two or three minutes. We were like, well, it's a minute 39.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah. Well, first off, I want to say that I'm obsessed with the wander wonder wander phrase just because it's so like when you hear that and you've ever had to give a presentation, like it really resonates because you've definitely seen that happen, whether to you or to others.

I've seen it happen when I've given a pitch before and, you know, it made me think back to what I did that could have been improved at that point.

But yeah, 99 seconds is not a lot of time.

And previous to this, I'd done some pitches that were three minutes. And when you're facing 99 seconds, you realize, oh man, I could have gotten so much more in in three minutes than 99 seconds.

You have to be like extremely concise, which is tricky.

And I think that I tend to want to put a lot of like data and words on my slides.

having been at Amazon for a long time, like our primary method of delivering information is like long form documents.

So with like, you know, 15 appendices attached.

So, you know, it's a little bit tough to now go back to a totally different communication style where you're relying on images and like spoken word and trying to like get that across.

So it was very difficult to figure out how to like reprogram on that.

And I was really fortunate cause you know,

I had Melissa here who helped coach me through and was very direct about how, you know, we're not trying to overwhelm people with data, but we're trying to share a story and that the story is the thing that people will remember, not the data points, even as compelling as you may think they are as a founder.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Right, right, I always say to people, like, it's the, cause the chart and the data are telling stories about people, right?

Usually, or maybe animals, or even it could be Mother Earth if they're like climate tech, right?

Like there's always a character and they're going to remember that story.

I hang my hat on that one, right?

But you need to have those, those charts, right?

And so oftentimes we will start with, so I say that there's three different types of decks.

There's an internal deck, which is where all that data is and your internal team is looking at it.

It doesn't have to be that pretty because no one else is gonna see it, right?

It's just you finding the story.

Then there's the shared deck, which is where I see most founders do this.

A shared deck means that there's more copy.

No one's talking.

The person has control over that deck so they can read it.

They can analyze.

They can do all that stuff.

But you still want to have your entire deck telling the overall story.

So every page is building upon that, right?

But then the speaker's deck, that's the precious one.

That's the one where you want to be very careful on how much information is going out.

So we have to control it.

We have to do slide building.

We have to have images.

So when you first brought your deck,

I remember it being very wordy, you know, coming from the Amazon background.

It was even literally black and white.

And so what was it like when I said, we need pictures and I need color?

Jane, The Starter Set
you know, took me a second to process as you may have noticed.

but yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny.

It's like, you hear things like that and it's like, yeah, obviously.

but I am like an extremely non-visual person.

So like then having to go think about how to do that, you know, takes a minute,

but you know, it just made so much sense.

I think like, yeah, it just made so much sense.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
I'm glad.

Yeah, and now moving forward, so you're gonna have longer pitches.

The same things apply.

They really do.

when you're picking a chart, when you're gonna actually,

I always say to clients, I'm like, it's not that Melissa's opposed to charts, I'm not.

Just I don't need to see every chart from your internal deck.

A lot of founders, you didn't do that, but I've seen founders who think that they have to show every single slide deck that they've ever seen.

And again, that's going to spark the wonder wander effect big time.

So as you move forward, remember internal deck, shared deck, and your speaker's deck need to have a different approach for the optimum success.

Jane, The Starter Set
Yeah, that makes so much sense.

You know, it's interesting because like I've also been in the audience for different pitches as well.

And, you know, seen even in the ones that I've been a part of, like what resonates with the audience and it's never, I would say, I don't know, maybe not never,

but like it's even the slide deck is sort of often so inconsequential.

And so what you're saying just hits so true to home because it's often so inconsequential.

And what ends up really connecting is like how authentic, how authentically the founder is able to like,

talk about their story.

And I don't even think in most cases it was about the deck.

It was really just about their presence.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
their presence and how they got there because they are either you're selling yourself as much as you are selling the technology

and so if you have a founder who is just all data doesn't want to answer the questions the way they're being asked is

you know is showing more fear I'm not saying they're not gonna get funding they can still get funding they're brilliant it's something right

but it can come faster if you can start to become a better more confident public speaker

and that comes from doing practice like you said I'm gonna just get up there and do it you'll get better at it but

practice.

Did you practice?

Jane, The Starter Set
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

My, well, because I am afraid of public speaking, for me, it's like I have to practice to the point where I can black out

because unless it's like full muscle memory, I will stumble and get nervous.

And I mean, even then, I know sometimes when you practice to that extent, it also ends up feeling wooden.

But, you know, there's things to continue to improve on.

What are you going to do?

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Yeah.

That's right, that's right.

And I always say to people, because I'm a storyteller and I've told longer stories, like five to eight, ten minute stories,

but when I tell them, I try to mix it up a little bit, you know, just so that it's entertaining still for me.

But the story still is intact, you know.

It just depends on who the audience is too, right?

you know, but now you have an elevator pitch.

You have an elevator pitch.

So, would you mind sharing how you open?

What was your opening problem story?

Do you remember how you did it?

Jane, The Starter Set
I do.

Yes.

Yeah, well, I talked about a mom who was facing that problem.

So we talk about that there is this first time expectant mom whose name is Joanne, and she is just so excited to put together a baby registry

until she realizes that that registry is 80 products deep, and it's going to take her 40 plus hours, two plus months to do it.

And that thing that we all do where we look at reviews and retail sites and blogs, like she's gonna be doing that times hundreds of products.

And it's just gonna take so much effort.

And so that's where we really come in and where we look at her value systems,

have her tell us what she cares about, and then match her to the perfect products for her based on our highly curated database of products.

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
There you go, right there, that was simple...

Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Thank you again, Jane. Thank you again, listening audience. And we will see you at the next episode. All right.

Thank you.

Episode 6: Transforming Startup Pitches That Connect with Jane Dashevsky

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