Abstract
Many early-stage startups acquire funding through contests in which founders take turns pitching their companies before a panel of investors. Based on observations of a series of four pitch competitions, the authors determined that the first two contestants were consistently rated lower than later pitches, even when controlling for potential compounding factors such as race or gender. Based on this counter-intuitive finding, the authors suggest that founders should try to avoid pitching first, and that investors should do their best to limit the impact of these order effect biases by proactively reconsidering their earlier evaluations.