Day 30 - The Pitch

Pitching Marathon

Seventeen pitches, each with a 5-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. I don't think I've ever seen such an amount of pitches, covering such a diverse array of topics. From curing eye cancer to virtual power plants to AI for mental health—it was a mind-blowing. Providing actionable feedback on such a wide range of concepts must have been challenging for the jury. Despite following a similar format—problem, solution, market, team—the pitches showed a variety of approaches to these areas. With the accelerated cases (pre-formed teams with a prototype) also presenting, there was a noticeable gap in progress among the teams. It'll be interesting to see if this gap persists or if it begins to narrow as we advance through the program.

Pitching Snappy

Our pitch didn't go as smoothly as hoped, but it seemed that our timing issues went unnoticed. We exceeded our 5 minutes slot, leaving me unable to present my part. I had intended to cover the business side of the company: target customers, pricing, go-to-market strategy, and more. Unfortunately, we had to do without that. For the next pitch, we need to not only divide the slides but also rehearse them together to avoid this. Nonetheless, we received positive feedback on the idea itself, along with suggestions for improvement. Most of the feedback centered on reducing the scope to minimize risk of overburdening ourselves and ensuring the technical feasibility of the concept. As the CTO, I share these concerns, particularly regarding technical feasibility. I need to delve into testing the technical details to ensure that the concept is indeed achievable.

I've sketched out an extremely simplified version of our core idea, which we can quickly mock up and test with potential users. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with the team tomorrow. But for now, it's time to rest and celebrate crossing the first major milestone: pre-IC #1.