We had an idea... so we pitched it! Here's how it went

As you can see by the title, a lot went on this week! Here’s what I’ll cover in this newsletter:

As some of you can tell, I’m on a startup training arc, where I take action on the things I need the most skill in to reach my long-term goal of creating an impactful tech company.

After building an app for so many months, I wanted to go back to the basics of idea forming, teamwork, and pitching. Soft skills.

I hope my experience demystifies what it’s like to lead a team and encourages you to take action on what you want to do. Every small step counts!

The Idea and How We Formed It

The idea we had evolved quite a bit. I led a group of five engineers with diverse engineering specialties such as bio-medical and electrical engineering, making me the only person with a Computer Science background.

We did this under a class called Engineering Innovation. This saved me the time of finding people to work with, worked around my school schedule, and provided me with structure.

Here is a summary of the main steps we took to create the idea:

Our Need Statement: There is a need to improve the health and quality of life of senior citizens by addressing social isolation

Our Solution: Create Shared VR Experiences for the Elderly and Their Loved Ones

Team Leading Reflection: Challenges & What Went Right

Challenges

What helped & I can improve on:

Utilizing Feedback

The Pitch

This was the best part! I like to start with a BANG, so we came up with a clever way to involve the audience and my personal experience to talk about the problem we were solving effectively.

As for the judges, responses, honestly I’m a bit disappointed. It wasn’t how my teammate and I pitched, it was more on the judges’ reaction. They didn’t break our pitch but asked questions about the technicalities of our solution in a critical way.

Ex: “Why use 360-cameras?” or “How do you define a senior?”

or my favorite… “Who said they wanted this?”

Where we pointed out our teacher expressed interest in it (who was also a judge).

Definitely had the judges and the whole class stunlocked for a minute 🤣 .

The questions were delivered in a critical and sharp manner, but they seemed like normal questions to me.

I was hoping they would break apart our pitch more, so I would know what to prioritize to fix, but luckily some questions they asked gave a direction to moving the project forward.

I had a lot of fun - the team, the idea, the pitch - I had a great time!

Next Steps

Right after the pitch, I was emailing individuals about relevant topics to the project.

I’m kinda bored if I don’t have some cool product to obsess over, so something like this should keep me occupied.

The next steps involve learning and asking questions to test the riskiest assumptions and explore the technical landscape.

Worst case, I learn a lot and come to a modified solution that I don’t think is cool enough to pursue. So I’ll just stop if that happens.

Best case, I don’t get bored, I build a cool product, and people want to buy it.

Takeaways for You

• Anyone can lead, but give yourself the conditions and practice to be a good leader

• Focus on topics that you are curious about or that excite you - otherwise, try something else

• Ask for feedback - a lot of your concerns are in your head

• Have fun 😉 and stay unbiased

In the following newsletters, I will share weekly updates on what I’ve learned, my startup journey, and will strive to be a source of encouragement for you guys.

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