Pitching to Win: How to Use Storytelling to Land Customers and Funding

Event Description:

In today’s competitive startup landscape, developing a great product alone isn’t enough — you need to craft a great story that gets you customers, investors, and momentum to scale. Whether you're convincing your first customers or pitching to investors, your ability to craft and deliver powerful narratives can pave the way to lasting success.

Join us for an informative and dynamic session built for founders, featuring seasoned entrepreneurs and industry experts who have mastered the art of storytelling. You'll learn how to shape a narrative that not only drives customer acquisition and retention, but also sets you apart when raising your first (or next) round. We'll cover frameworks that sharpen your key message, marketing and sales tactics that amplify your story, and strategies for positioning your brand and vision as you scale.

Whether you're preparing to launch, grow, or fundraise, you’ll walk away with actionable insights on developing a customer-centric story that resonates and converts.

Event Details:

Date: Friday, May 23
Time: 2:00–2:45 PM
Cost: You must purchase a Vancouver Startup Week All-Access pass to attend this event.
Use our code VSWxInsideView20 to receive a discount on All-Access passes (covers 60+ events across 4 days) at https://vanstartupweek.ca/
Location: Low Tide Event Space, 1 Water Street, Vancouver

This is the 2/3 sessions in Van365View x Inside View x Vancouver Startup Week's 2025 Event Series: Navigating Tech, Product & Equity in Startups.

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About the Speakers:

This panel features Michelle Sklar (Head of Marketing @ Innovation UBC), Meena Sandhu (Chief Revenue Officer @ Saas Revenue Consulting), and Paschal Okwundu (Founder & CEO @ Binta Financial).

Michelle Sklar is a strategic communications leader with expertise in performance driven growth marketing, storytelling, community building and entrepreneurship. With over two decades of comprehensive achievements in both B2B and B2C industries, Michelle has a proven track record as an executive leader in digital marketing, PR, strategic partnerships, and venture building. Michelle has focused her professional career development on scaling ideas to impact in the Emerging Technology, Digital Media, Events, Retail and Nonprofit industries.

Michelle’s broad cross-functional expertise is in brand strategy, content creation, building marketing teams, stakeholder engagement, project management and impact reporting. Michelle leads EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) initiatives, change management, developing comprehensive leadership tracks and mentorship programs - all to help empower the organizations she works with to flourish. Michelle thrives in Startups and fast paced environments, where culture and vision match the desire to be transformative.

Michelle is the Head of Marketing & Communications for Innovation UBC, the Chair of the Vancouver Entrepreneurs Forum, and a Mentor with New Ventures BC.

Meena Sandhu is an enterprising Saas revenue executive, adept at architecting go-to-market strategies that propel SaaS startups to 2x and 3x growth multiples. With over 20 years of experience, she excels at developing high-performing sales, marketing, and customer success teams, and is a master at driving expansion revenue through innovative cross-sell and up-sell strategies.

As the Chief Revenue Officer at Saas Revenue Consulting Advising, Meena helps startups scale up from seed to series B, provides startups with sales, customer success, and marketing playbooks, leads strategic planning and works with executive teams to make 10x improvements to their business, coaches young and up-and-coming leader, and ensures that marketing, sales, and CS align. Meena helps all revenue teams work as one and breaks down silos.

Having led sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams at a VP level or higher, Meena's multi-faceted approach to revenue leadership is underpinned by a robust go-to-market strategy that aligns with market dynamics and customer needs.

Paschal Okwundu is the founder and CEO of Binta Financial, an award-winning fintech company redefining access to credit for immigrants, renters, and underbanked communities. Recognized as one of Canada’s Top 20 Black Tech Entrepreneurs to Watch, Paschal is leading a financial revolution—building products that enable global credit migration, rent reporting, and culturally tailored financial education.

His journey from international student to fintech founder embodies the entrepreneurial spirit. With over a decade of experience in private equity, banking, and management consulting—including roles at RBC, BMO, and Slalom Consulting—Paschal brings deep insight into systemic barriers and how to dismantle them through innovation.

In under a year, Binta has been named Best Innovative Business of 2024 by the Black Business Association of BC and is already supporting communities across Canada. Paschal is passionate about inclusive innovation and empowering the next generation of tech leaders to build boldly and equitably.