We have our customer validated idea. We have our awesome PowerPoint deck. We've got our pro forma income statement, our marketing plan, and our advisers. We've been working on our pitch. Now, its time to get in front of complete strangers- strangers with some credibility in this field, be they investors, entrepreneurs, or other impressive business folk- and see what they think about Morph- the Uber of food-delivery.
At the pitch party, a hundred booths are set up, with teams representing different ideas behind them. There were foods like pecan milk, apps to get your car washed, apps to help diet and cook, products to never need to tie shoelaces again, and what seemed like a million more. Judges walk around and talk to as many of these companies as they could, learning, asking questions, and probing further into the business model to decide how feasible and scalable the idea really was. To the ideas they liked, they awarded a million dollar bill. To others, they gave advice. I was looking for the former, and thought that we were far too smart and prepared to bother listening to the latter. That, right there, was my biggest mistake, and one of my greatest learnings of this whole year.
As the event wore on, our stack of money did not increase nearly as much as I expected. I was feeling down and slightly desperate, and began walking far from our booth, poaching judges. I'd come up to anyone who would listen, and begin my spiel about Morph. I'd tell them about the problems we learned about, how our solution is better than all others, how easily and well we can scale. And then I'd expect the money, because I was so confident that we deserved it.
But alas, little came. The advice, however, was essential, and it took a tap on the shoulder and a private talk with Ollie, one of my GLOBE class team members, to set me straight. "Listen," he said. "Listen, write down their issues, and come back to them. Learn what you don't know, and figure that out."
And so I finally did. I stopped trying to pitch our idea for some monopoly dollars, and instead took the whole event as a chance to gather as many critiques as I could and, hopefully, find some insights we hadn't thought of. I was asked legal questions about how we would handle charges like those faced by Uber. While previously I would try to deflect it and tell them about how quickly we would serve customers, I now would nod and tell them that its an important subject to learn into.
When asked about the market size before, I would reply with our revenue projections, hoping that would be enough. Now, I admitted it was an important piece of missing information, and replied with a question: "How would you go about sizing this market? Do you have any suggestions?"
This whole experience was- and should have been- an opportunity to learn. Financially, the best case scenario was $1000. Not a make it or break it amount by any means, but I had seen it as validation of our hard work and, more personally, my credibility and ability to be an entrepreneur. But with so many smart judges around, all who came to donate their time and ears to our idea, it was the advice that I should have recognized as the most valuable part of this whole event, not some fake money that would tell me I'm good enough to do this.
So there you have it. Look for advice when its offered to you for free. Admit the gaps in knowledge, and fill them as immediately and completely as you can. Asking questions is more than fine- its encouraged. And do all this to prepare yourself to fight another day.
We're finishing up 2014 with this post. The last weeks of the year were spent researching the issues that came up at the Pitch Party. Just before school let out, I came up to May, the one American on my GLOBE team, and talked to her about Morph. I told her that it's been an awesome experience working with her on this, but I don't think we should be quite finished yet. There is a lot we can do, and I want this to be much more than a class project. Is she willing to get to work, and see where we can take this? Does she want to join me, and try to turn this idea- an idea that began as a pizza app- into something real, tangible, and potentially huge?
Luckily for me, she did. Because there is no way I could have done this alone, without her. In my next post, I'll talk a bit about how we structured meetings, what we did, and how we set goals for ourselves. This is all leading up to the Carolina Challenge, which, soon, should get us to the present day.
Much love,
A
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