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GeekStack At Chicagoland Fast Pitch Competition on 11/18
Posted on | November 12, 2008 | No Comments
Good news! I’ve just been accepted to pitch GeekStack at the Chicagoland Fast Pitch Competition, part of the Entrepreneurship Week Chicago. Next Tuesday, November 18, I get three minutes to pitch to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts and a chance to win a $4,000 prize! I’m way excited about to get some exposure, some practice, and some advice, plus maybe win some money to do the legal stuff and print a first batch of cards. There are 20 companies pitching, so I thought I’d take a look at the competition.
Well, I’msort of glad I did, but let me tell you how it made me feel. I just saw the movie Kung Fu Panda over the weekend (everyone with little kids probably did). The main character is a big fat panda who dreams of being a kung fu master, and through a big mixup, he gets trained by the greatest sensei in the land. Just when he gets over his initial fear and gets his skills and confidence up, the other good guys get defeated and dumped at the palace steps. When the panda sees how powerful the bad guy is, his confidence runs out and he tries to run away. He eventually gets it together and (SPOILER ALERT) beats the bad guy (END SPOILER), but he’s pretty intimated right then.
Well, let’s say I’m in the “intimidated panda” stage right now. Not all of the companies had websites or Googleable names, but a lot of the ones I did find looked a whole lot farther along than me. Also, they were in more prestigious and impressive sounding fields, including biotech, crowdsourced design, retail logistics, medical records, food safety, travel, virtual reality, surgical instruments, medical diagnostics, mobile communications, and corporate communication.
My little non-existent scientist cards seemed a little meek by comparison. I kind of felt like running away from the palace and hiding in my dad’s noodle shop (to stretch the panda analogy some more), but I pulled myself together and tried to put my vision into perspective. I’m working to change the attitudes of kids toward education and raise the bar on educational products to make them competitive with regular entertainment. I’m a champion of knowledge, a warrior for science and innovation, and making advanced subjects more accessible to youth. I may be smaller now, but that just means that I started later and have farther to go, not that I’m any less likely to succeed. I deserve that prize just as much as any other company there, so now it’s up to me to work, practice, rehearse, and polish my pitch until they have no choice but to notice me.
If anyone is going to be in Chicago next Tuesday, come see me from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Here is more information and directions.
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