Episode 72: Navigating Startup Pitch Competitions with Key Opinion Leaders Kalen Hall and Leo Williams (RE-RELEASE)

Are you a startup struggling through business plan competition battlefields? In this episode, learn some tips and tricks on how to elevate your pitch and stand out amongst the competition. You're listening to BIO from the Bayou, empowering biotech leaders with the tools, assets, and expertise to improve healthcare outcomes. Each episode provides insights and information to expand your network, advance your product line, and help your company thrive. Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans.

Hi, I'm Nick Pashos, Tulane School of Medicine's Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and I'll be your Bio from the Bio host today. Today's guests are Dr. Kaelin Ahl and Dr. Leo Williams, both Tulane PhD graduates. You may recognize them from episode 19, where they discussed their startup company, Enformuta, which utilizes machine learning to improve medical outcomes related to antibacterial resistance through diagnostic services. They recently took part in the Rice Business Plan Competition, the nation's largest business plan competition, a multi-day event where student founders pitch to investors and receive feedback to advance their startup and compete for over $1 million in prize money. Welcome back to the show, Kaelin and Leo.

Thanks, Nick. Thanks for having us, guys.

Good to be here.

So before we jump into the main topic today, I'd like to ask, how many business plan competitions have you both done and what have been your experiences been like so far?

Around 6 maybe?

Yeah, we've done a lot. I was just sitting here counting in my head. So we've done all the, the 2-lane local ones. So I think we did about 4 last spring, and then this spring we did the 2-lane business model competition, Rice Business Plan Competition. So yeah, I think that's 6.

And the Innovation Institute had a demo day.

Oh, the demo day. Yes.

For the first time this year. The ones last year I think were the Medical Innovation Challenge, Also by the Innovation Institute.

And the Pitch Fridays.

And the Pitch Friday competition put on by the business school.

And you guys also competed in the Tullian Business Model Competition earlier this year too, correct?

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, that's, that's quite a few. So I guess you've had some practice going around, huh?

Just a little bit.

All right. So let's, let's talk about the Rice Business Plan Competition, which is, as I said, the largest business competition in the United States. Around 500 competitors applied, I believe this year, 42 made it in. You all placed 4th. which is the highest any tooling company has previously done, and walked away with over $70,000 in prizes. Can you tell me about your experience at RISE? What did the competition entail? How did you guys go through it all? Anything at all you wanna describe about it?

Yeah, I mean, it was a whirlwind. We were very surprised we even got in, 'cause last year we did not get accepted. And this year I was kind of working on some R&D stuff and Kaelin reapplied us and I wasn't, I didn't really know that until I got an email one day saying, hey, you've been invited to Rice Business Plan Competition. And I was like, Kaelin, what is this? So we were ecstatic just to get invited. And honestly, we, we had heard it was a giant production, a lot of networking involved. That's kind of like really the, the main quote unquote prize, um, is all the, the, the mentors and investors that you meet there. So we went in with literally zero expectations as far as prize money and like placing or anything like that. But we really treated it as kind of a job. We knew we were going to get invaluable feedback from the judges. I think all in all, we had 4 rounds of pitching, including, or maybe 3, including 1 practice pitch the first day.

And then also the 60-second elevator pitch.

Yeah. And so we got the judges that are in the room for those give you a front and back page of written feedback that is very, very valuable. And so we basically spent all of our time incorporating that into our pitch. as soon as we got it back. And so our pitch, the difference between our pitch from when we got there versus the end of it was, you know, it was 40% better. And also that was the first like investor-focused pitch that we had ever done, which was quite different than the more general idea-focused pitches that we had done before.

Yeah, I think it was kind of— Bryce was kind of the finale of quite a crazy month for both Leo and I and the company. I mean, I think We kind of— I think we went in with a really awesome mentality, and I think that kind of really contributed to our success at the competition. I mean, we had— speaking of the other competitions we did, from mid-March until like the first weekend of April, which is when Rice was, we had the Tulane Business Model Competition where we won second and got $30,000. We had the Demo Day from the Innovation Institute where we won first and got $25,000. I defended my dissertation.

Mm-hmm.

And then we had to prepare and make all this stuff for Rice. And it was just an absolute kind of chaotic 3 weeks. And I think also something that Leo did not emphasize enough is the lack of sleep we got over those 4 days in Houston.

Yeah.

And just kind of staying up in the hotel lobby until 3:00 AM, like incorporating all the feedback we got and to make our pitch the next day as best as we possibly could. I think we went in being really grateful just to give him the opportunity to go there and compete and meet everyone and network. And I think that we just made the most out of every pitch that we could do. And I think that really shone through and kind of just got us through every round.

That's awesome. I went as your guys' sort of mentor for that pitch competition for Rice. And when I went as a student, I think it was one of the most overwhelming experiences that I've ever had. I wasn't really able to take in everything that was happening. Kaitlyn, Leo, what was your experience from it being overwhelming, taking it one step at a time? I mean, Kaitlyn, you also had to do the sort of 60-second elevator pitch competition at the very beginning, the first day we were there, you all pitched for a feedback session, 3 rounds after that. I mean, it was sort of a sequential 1, 2, 3. And then as soon as you guys made it to the finals, everyone started pitching within 15 minutes of finding out. So how did, how did that sort of work out for all you?

Well, first of all, we got to thank you, Nick. Yeah, I think you being there with all your previous experience with that and like you, you being where you are with your company, I don't even think we would have gotten maybe a third out of it as we did if you weren't there. Like what you said, how overwhelming it was. But you were, you were an excellent guy. So, we just have to explicitly thank you for everyone to hear that Nick was, Nick was awesome.

Yeah, definitely. And I think that Nick was also an incredible hype man and kind of every time we would pitch, we were like, I don't know, like the competition's so tough. And he's like, no, you guys are making it. You're gonna make it through. He's like, go practice more. But I think kind of what got us through the whole very long weekend was just Kind of taking it as a stepwise approach and bite by bite. Like, I mean, especially that Thursday, I mean, Leo and I were up in our little break room, like practicing running through our pitch, making sure we were hitting everything for the practice round. And then like, as soon as we were done, I was gonna get up there in front of like 500 people and also a livestreamed worldwide audience on YouTube.

Mm-hmm.

And do a 60-second pitch, and which is a lot of pressure. And I had wrote it at 2:00 AM the night before and had not even memorized it yet. So I think it was just like, I was like, okay, this Practice round's done. Now I need to sit in this room and memorize a 60-second pitch. And it's just like, as soon as you get one thing done, just like take a second, take a breath, have a snack, get a coffee, and then just like take the next thing in stride. And I think that's kind of just what we did throughout the whole weekend and just taking it step by step and preparing it step by step.

You guys did such an exceptional job at that competition. I think you guys handled the stress and, uh, the time commitment and everything else so, so well. You know, this competition is a little bit different than any other business plan. competition or business model competition that I had done previously and, and likely what you guys all did previously. Can you talk a little bit about how it was a little bit different and possibly even from the point of view of getting feedback from judges?

Yeah, I think that what I noticed was the biggest difference, obviously, I think the, the size was the biggest competition we've ever been to before. And definitely the exposure to, I think they had over like 350 judges there, Also the audience of the judges themselves and who you're tailoring your pitch to and what information they're looking for. I think over 80% of those judges were investors, and most of them are angel investors. They're there looking to invest their own money or as part of an angel network. And really, the— it's a competition. You're there to win a prize and you're, you're there to place, but you're also there pitching to people who would actually give you money for your company. And I think that that was a very different Kind of nuanced approach of when we were tailoring our pitch and what things to really hit. A lot more like business model competitions or pitch competitions, which are kind of more performative and you're telling a story, which I think the story's still really important, but I think like hitting more of the financials and focusing on exit strategy and what things are attractive to investors, what things really grab their attention of, wow, this company's really investible and I can make a really big ROI investing in them. I think that was kind of a really big Mentality shift at Rice versus the other ones. Also, definitely the feedback. I think with all the other competitions we've done, I mean, really the opportunity for feedback is following up with judges after the fact or kind of like in a more informal like networking session, talking to them one-on-one afterwards. But I think those kind of like slips, getting very structured written feedback from every single judge was just something that we've never had like opportunity to get before. And I think that something Leo and I have always struggled with is that we have such a complex technology that sometimes we struggle to even explain to people who are in our graduate program, let alone to investors who like have a background in like oil and gas in Houston. It really was helpful to hear and see what was sticking and what wasn't and what was landing and what wasn't. And we would think that we really hammered home like our competitive differentiation or our business model or what our price was. And then we would see on like 5 or 10 slips like, oh, you guys didn't say this. And it's like, okay, clearly we weren't communicating this effectively. And so sometimes I think like when we're, when you're sitting there like on your PowerPoint slide deck, going through it and staring at it for really, I mean, at this point I feel like I've stared at that slide deck for a sum total of like 5 weeks of my life. You think that you're communicating things that it's so obvious. And then on the other side of things, when someone's seeing it for the first time, it's just not.

Yeah.

So I think like that was so helpful going forward.

One of the things for me was just really the, the hard numbers to put on, like the hard financial numbers, which we've never really had to do before because they weren't like huge criteria in any of the previous competitions. Even if they're like estimates, a lot of them really wanted hard numbers to at least give like ballpark ranges of like what our price point is or what our exit valuation might be and like multiple different points in time and stuff. Another thing was Pitching in Houston at Rice specifically, because like Kalen said, there was a lot of oil and gas, um, a lot of energy industry and stuff like that. And there, there were a lot of healthcare-focused people there, but you don't really see a lot of like the very high net worth individuals from healthcare places. So, and we are a healthcare company, so it was interesting. We kind of take some feedback with some grains of salt because they were coming from people who, who very, very smart, but not necessarily as versed in our background and especially the technology. So sometimes it was kind of hard to communicate with. But I think that was just an interesting tidbit from the, the, the audience that we were in front of.

I think that's a perfect example. Every time you guys pitched, it was a new audience at Rice, right? There were 350 judges, like you said, and every single time you pitched, basically it was combination or completely new set of judges, and it was kind of knowing your audience, right? And taking some of that feedback with a grain of salt, putting it back together and making an even better pitch. And every iteration you both did that, that week was so much better than the previous. And every single time it was phenomenal. And I think you guys really carried home all the points and anything someone didn't get, you made sure to go back through and, and hammer it home through the appendix slides or the Q&A. Overall, I just commend both of you. It was awesome to watch. It was awesome to be a part of, and you guys just did a phenomenal job. What is your biggest takeaway from the Rice Business Plan?

For me, something I had kind of, we'd kind of been experiencing, but it was really network effects. Like we literally just got off a call with a clinician at Houston Methodist who is very likely to be a future potential collaborator, if not part of the company. And he wasn't even someone that we met at Rice. We got referred to him by numerous people. So there's a ton of people we met there that we're still in contact with and reaching out to. But then you get these like second-order network effects of other people that those people know, and it's going to be really massive for us going forward.

Yeah, I think definitely the connections that we made at Rice were, I think, were not to sound corny, but were the biggest prize that we got. I mean, the $70,000 is awesome, but I mean, I think like the connections and the ins that we now have to pitching into different angel networks, to different funds, access and opportunity to meet different clinical collaborators or potential hires, I think It was just the our our network and kind of circle of people that we know just exponentially widened. I think also kind of the biggest thing Leo and I talked a lot about was I feel like especially coming from I mean really we started the idea for this company just January of last year, and I think that I'm sure anyone who's gone through or is doing a startup like knows that we've gotten a lot of nos, and we've gotten a lot of nos from investors. We've got a lot of criticism from investors. We've been told that we're way too early. We don't know what we're doing. We need. Adult supervision, etc., etc. And I think it's just like going through that and just getting the overwhelming positive reception that we had was like the most validating thing that I've ever like had happen. And so I think that it was just a huge green light that even in a, in an arena kind of where life science is not really the major expertise of that audience, I think that it was so awesome to hear so much positive feedback that people really saw the value in what we're doing. And I think When we were there, Leo and I probably had at least 15 people come up to us and talk about like a personal story that they had with either themselves or a loved one who suffered from like a drug-resistant infection. And I think that's really like why we started this in the first place.

Yeah, we also had very colorful comments from some judges. I'm sure you know which ones I'm talking about.

Yes, you did.

So there's, there's just a lot of fun experiences peppered throughout too. But another thing was just Being in front of that audience, like that was, that was the big times. It really forced us to bring our A-game. So like, I don't really see us doing something much harder than what we did at Rice. And so now that we've experienced that, we know what we're capable of and we know what we have to do, the kind of mindset we have to be in to do something like that.

Yeah. I mean, after every pitch, you guys had a line of people waiting to speak to you, which I think means that you have a very interesting business and you did your job well, right? So how many business cards did you all give away? Because I probably gave away, I don't know, Maybe 75 to 100 on your behalf. So how many, how many did you guys give away each?

I mean, let's stop counting.

Yeah, probably at least 50.

Yeah, sounds about right.

Yeah, each.

That's awesome.

I, I did spend the— I'm just now finally caught up on follow-up meetings. I spent like the whole 2 weeks since we got back, just every day in Zoom purgatory meeting with people.

Yeah, that's actually, that's actually a good point. Like after we, um, got back from Rice, we kind of So, Katelyn's kind of like the acting chief science officer directing like the, the microbiology experiments and stuff. And, you know, I'm the CTO, I'm developing like the product and doing the computational experiments and stuff. But like right now, product development is kind of our main thing that we need to get done. So Katelyn's been handling a lot more of the business stuff. And especially after Rice, I think it became very clear that it was a good idea to kind of further segregate into those roles because We really realized there's only so many hours in the day and it's hard for both of us to know everything at any given time. So that was another kind of effect that came out of that further segregation into those roles in order for us to move a lot faster.

Yeah, for sure. I feel like we kind of like came up with the titles out of necessity, like last fall of me being CEO and Leo being CTO, just kind of how the Delegation of tasks naturally fell, and also especially with Leo being our software developer and doing most of the product development. And I think that we've both kind of grown into those roles. And I think after this competition, and it feels kind of like the big leagues now, and I think that was another huge takeaway for us personally as a team of kind of the two of us really stepping up and owning those roles that we gave ourselves. And there's no need for like both of us to attend every meeting. Like we can delegate and divide and conquer, be a lot more efficient and be a lot more productive. I think that's kind of like a. A byproduct of Rice as well.

One thing I saw was just you guys make a wonderful team. You guys complement each other so well. And during Q&A, just in general, you guys are just building off of each other answering those questions. And you left all the judges, I think, very impressed with that team that you, you all built around each other. So I commend you for that as well. So you guys have been wonderfully successful in this competition and in the Rice Business Competition. And amongst hundreds of other applicants, you all were selected for this and ended in 4th place, which is pretty amazing. What advice would you give others looking to apply or who have gotten into Rice Business Plan and, and looking to compete?

I think it depends on the company and your focus. I mean, I think speaking from a life science perspective, I think our success in business competitions started to pick up a lot when we learned how to communicate our science more effectively. And I think that's a skill that any trained scientist honestly always struggles with because I think that we're so stuck in the world of academics and jargon, and it's not something that we're professionally trained on how to do, even though it should be. And I think that was the turning point. And I think it honestly was a big difference between our application to Rice this year versus last year was learning how to clearly and accessibly communicate what our technology is. And then also over the year, us learning a lot more about like the market and also the competitive landscape and learning what really differentiates us because We're in an incredibly crowded space. I'm sure we've heard, I mean, when you go to any pitch competition or any of these big incubators, et cetera, like they've seen hundreds and hundreds of applications for drug-resistant diagnostic companies before. And I think learning what really makes us different and stand out and what is nuanced about our technology and the advantages of it versus everyone else, I think is really key. And I think if you see our pitch now versus when we like did our first competition in like January or even later on in the spring last year, I mean, I mean, it's really mind-blowing the difference because I think we really honed that skill of hammering home what it is we really do in a way that makes sense. And so anyone can understand it and they can appreciate what's so cool about what we do and that we're not just a drug-resistant diagnostic company. Our technology is so much more cool and nuanced than that. And I think learning how to effectively communicate that made all the difference in the world.

Yeah, I think I definitely agree. Clearly communicating your technology so they know what you're talking about in the first place. But also given this audience and stuff, really do the work to get into knowing your market and your potential target customers. Do some customer interviews, do customer discovery, because if you just have a cool idea, but one of the biggest death knells of startups is assuming you have something that people actually want to buy, and that's probably more often than not, not true. So showing investors that, you know, not just the utility of what you're building, but who is actually going to pay money for it and who it's actually going to help. I think having hard numbers for that, even if they're estimates, they don't— they don't have to be perfect. In fact, like every number on any kind of pitch deck in these competitions, everybody knows that it's not totally accurate, but just showing that, you know, what you're supposed to be looking for, that goes a long way.

Thank you very much for that advice. I think you guys have been able to build a really beautiful story and able to effectively communicate it. That's all we have time for today, but thank you very much for sharing your experience and congratulations again. We'll be sure to continue keeping an eye on Infimuta in the future. As always, we will have Kalen and Leo's contact information and informational links posted in our show notes. Make sure to check them out and to learn more. Thank you again for joining us.

Thanks, Nick.

Thank you, Nick.

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