  I've spent the last two days camped out at this year's Launch
Festival, a tech start-up competition in San Francisco founded
by entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis, where more than 40
start-ups competed for more than $1 million in prizes and seed
capital.  In between the pitches, I asked investors and judges
what it takes to make them sit up and pay attention.  1. The
shorter your pitch, the more successful you'll be.   Calacanis
claims that after five years of putting together the start-up
competition, he's learned that the more quickly founders can
articulate their business ideas, the more viable their companies
usually are. Your first sentence is critical—state what your
company does as clearly as possible. If you nail it, "I start
thinking about what's possible to do with you," says AngelPad
founder Thomas Korte. "If you don't, I stop listening because
I'm trying to figure out what it is you do."  If you're given
five minutes, don't practice a five-minute pitch; aim for just
over four minutes. "If