At Volume Nine, everyone joins in on a client pitch at some point, whether they’re leading the charge or there for support.

No matter our personal feelings about public speaking, everyone here at Volume Nine was excited to have Jay Mays, founder of Pitch Lab, stop by for an afternoon “beer-and-learn” talk recently.

You bring the pitch. We provide the stage.

In the same way a stand-up comic hits an open-mic, Pitch Lab is designed to help you clock the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice Malcolm Gladwell says make a master.

Whether you’re persuading a group of VCs, landing your next big client or preparing for an important speech, we all need practice to improve our pitch.

What better way to kick off the summer than by hanging out with comedians and learning how to become a better speaker? Am I right?!

Ben Kronberg is a stand-up comedian based out of New York. He headlines comedy clubs and festivals worldwide AND he has a hilarious Half Hour Comedy Special on Comedy Central!

Today, students played a few rounds of comedy karaoke to learn how to adapt the strategies of successful comedians to the presentations they will be making in a few weeks.

Like many of the lessons that students learn at Colorado Academy, they have long term value to prepare young people for more than just college.

Telling a great story is more than showcasing your product, market opportunity or expertise.

Great stories, the ones that lead to action, are constructed in a way that brings together the human need to ‘fight or flight’, with an actionable solution.

In this Pitch Lab workshop, we discuss common mistakes startups make when telling stories and provide a toolkit so you can avoid them.

So many great things about this event... where do I even start?

First off we were lucky enough to land Daniel Reskin as our stand-up comedy coach / co-instructor. Daniel is a 10-year stand-up comedy veteran who hails from Miami who created the long-running monthly showcase Casa de Haha, appeared in Comedy Central’s South Beach Comedy Festival and was named Best Comedian in Miami by the Miami New Times.

Pitch Lab presenters posed as eco-friendly, animal-loving entrepreneurs. Their innovation is a recipe for an all-natural, organic protein drink, named Meat Water.

Livestock farming is destroying our environment. Meat Water solves this dilemma by extracting protein from animals while they are still alive, via osmosis. Sure soaking cows for protein is gross, but think of Mother Earth!

We had a blast. And THE MEAT PUNS WERE PLENTIFUL... SO MANY MEAT PUNS!

Mike Kilcoyne, Co-Founder of Startup Denver, invited Pitch Lab to participate in Pitch Battle in a most Nathan For You kind of way.

He asked if Tommy Y (veteran comic and Pitch Lab delivery coach) would join their stellar lineup as a ringer.

Of course we were totally on-board, and Tommy played the part of a zoo-advocate turned entrepreneur pitching his latest development, Growl Energy Drinks for Zoo Animals.

JD Lopez, comedian & producer of Left Hand, Right Brain Podcast played the part of an optometrist entrepreneur and taught us that sometimes the difference between a loser (Clark Kent) and a hero (Superman) is merely a pair of glasses.

Hence the unbridled powers of his “prescription windshields” business plan!

After his mock pitch, JD opened up about vulnerability on stage an acknowledged that some things that take away from your performance can’t be controlled. What can be controlled is how you react to them.