What's next?

Week of 11/9 - 11/15

During this past weekend, I had the final pitch that I talked a lot about in my previous blogs. my team and I spent many hours preparing by making a proper slideshow template to having all the accurate numerical data. I believe the key to any pitch is the execution of your idea. A person could build the most disruptive innovation however if it's not executed properly during a pitch, that innovation has no future in the market until it has been properly executed. My team and I took these ideas into consideration and made our script such that it could convey a deep message about the service we were selling. We did this by creating a proper hook and story to gain the attention of the investors and incorporated transitions to make our ideas flow well.

On the day of the final pitch, my team presented using all the techniques discussed and made our presentation very engaging to the investors. After our presentation, the investors asked us questions about the future of our service that we were clearly able to answer because of how organized our ideas were and how much research we did as a team. After all the teams pitched their ideas, the results were posted. I was in complete shock to see our team's name in 1st place, winning the $500 cash prize and advancing onto the next phase of competition known as the "Global Startup Battle". Even though I experienced such a great victory, I couldn't help but think of the next steps that we need to take as a startup. So far, we have set up a good foundation for ourselves and have obtained some credibility for our business however, to get into the marketplace and hire people, we are going to need a lot more credibility.

In this next week, my team and I will peak with my mentor, Ms. Vida Patil on the next steps to take throughout our startup journey. Since she is very familiar with the startup ecosystem, she can help us make connections to the right people and help us increase our credibility as well so that we can have an even stronger foundation as a startup. I am proud of my team and myself for our first victory and excited to take these next steps where we will encounter many successes and failures along the way.