Joe, Juan, and Kevin lead a pitching workshop where six founders introduce their startups, from travel-tech to food delivery. Ed pitches CredDream, a blockchain-enabled lending app with 4,000 downloads seeking $300k at a $3M valuation. The group then practices a "pitchback" where Jonathan re-pitches Ed's business, with coordinators giving feedback on problem clarity and delivery.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Joe, one of the program coordinators. I'm Juan, and also a program coordinator. I'm Kevin, also a program coordinator. This morning we're going to be doing our pitching workshop. But before we get to it, I guess I want to quickly go around the room and see where everyone is at in terms of their businesses and what they're working on, just so we can kind of tailor the pitch workshop to you guys. So why don't we start with you? Just let us know what you're working on and what stage you're at.
It's an early-stage company called Seat Assignment. We focus on email technology. Specifically right now, we're focusing on travel sector. Basically, we build a lightweight app into emails so travelers can check in without going to apps, websites. It's a SaaS software.
And when you say early stage, have you raised yet? Or have you not started the fundraising?
Right now, the company is backed By an incubator from JetBlue.
Perfect.
Okay, cool.
And your name again?
Shi Li. Shi Li.
Hi, I'm Jonathan from Cambio. We are helping travelers to find the best way to convert their money into local currency. We also backed by the accelerator of JetBlue. We raised $300,000 as a personal investment. And we are launching our first product in February, this month, in London.
Cool. Ed?
So I'm Ed.
I'm the founder of CreditMe.
It's an online lender in Brazil. And I think we found a product-market fit, and we're ready to raise a seed round to grow. So that's where we are.
Cool.
I'm Nils from PaySense.
We're essentially a travel management company based on AI.
Maybe not the best way to pitch it.
You just pitched it already.
Yeah.
We'll work on pitching today, so don't you worry about it.
All day.
Hi, I'm Amit from Deary. We're a company that connects seniors in their homes and in senior housing to technology using a variety of inputs. Not in the travel space.
Super early stage.
We're working on our MVP. We have not gone out to raise. We won a few hackathons hacking around our core product. But yeah, going to move towards that.
Awesome.
Oh, okay.
Got it.
I'm Nana Zaltzman. I'm the program director of Navigator, the global accelerator powered by Alan Jentz.
Okay.
I am Felicia. I'm the CEO of 30 Seconds to Fly, but Leo's pitched already. We have built We build an AI assistant that manages travel for small and mid-sized corporations. And we've raised $300K and we'll start the beta.
You guys are co-founders?
Not directly.
Not directly. All right, cool. So we, this pitch workshop we actually take around to a bunch of conferences in the area and we get some pretty good feedback on it. So hopefully you guys will enjoy it. We're gonna try to be entertaining. We also apparently have some late, late arrivals. No, no, it's good. We actually just went around the room and everyone kind of introduced themselves and what they're working on. So if you guys just want to give us your name and kind of what you're working on, you can jump right in.
So my name is Zach Murray, and I was over here at Booth about 4 years ago as the first company in the first class of the program that had gone through it. And the name of the company is Favor. And we've— Ben and I started together back then. And the company is based in Austin, Texas. We're now in about 15 cities. We have about 150 employees. The company itself, it picks up and delivers food from any local place. And yeah, we've grown a lot since the program.
And what stage are you guys at? Where are you actually going to? We're raising our Series B. Series B?
Yeah, we raised about $30 million today.
Awesome. So while we're going— we kind of were told that you guys were doing well. So while we're going through today, since you guys have successfully done a lot of pitching, we might pull on you guys for your experiences. Yeah, we're glad to help. Awesome. And I'm Joe, by the way, since you guys just walked in. Juan and Kevin.
Hey, guys.
So let's get the workshop going then. Which computer are we using? So the first thing we need is a volunteer. So who wants to volunteer? Everyone's jumping at the opportunity. Leaders go first. Yeah, who's gonna jump up?
Ed?
You willing to do it? All right, so what we need you to volunteer for is— oh wait, okay— to pitch your business. So just come up here and pitch your business in a minute to 2 minutes.
Okay, so my business is CredDream. We use smartphones and the blockchain with the mission to provide universal access to credit. All right, we built a mobile app which now has 4,000 downloads in Brazil, and people can download the app, get a loan quote, and if approved, get their money within 48 hours. This is a 10 times better experience than going from bank to bank trying to get a loan, you know. So on top of that, we are building a smart contracts application on the blockchain to connect international investors to borrowers in Brazil.
Perfect.
Offering a higher return for investors and a lower rate for the customers. We raised in total $140K from Tim Draper and other angels, and now we are raising $300,000 at a $3 million valuation. We have 125 soft commits, so if you guys know anyone who would like to invest, I would appreciate the introduction.
Good. Cool. Real quick.
And then I think we already saw, but we need another volunteer. So who else wants to get up and I'll do it. Hopefully it doesn't do this the whole day. All right, so the surprise is you're actually going to pitch back the business that he just pitched. So you're going to pitch Ed's business instead of your own.
No problem.
Pitch his business?
Yep, pitch what he just pitched.
No problem.
Guys, getting a loan from a bank is probably a hassle. We're paying a lot of fees to the bank. And let's say that we do many banks in order to get our best quote. What's the name of the company?
CreditRing.
With CreditRing, you can go to one mobile app, upload your data, ask for the loan, and get a quote from a private investor which you'd like to invest instead of the bank through the CreditRing application. Therefore, we can cut the middleman aside and enjoy a better economy. And without raising—
Great. So, Ed, how did he do on your business?
He did pretty well. He showed a very well-defined problem which people face in going through banks. That's a very good way to do it.
So usually when we do the pitchback, it helps demonstrate— normally it doesn't go quite as smoothly. You did it.
It's easier for me, I know the business. Not for him, but I know the industry.
Yeah, yeah, so you got lucky on someone who knew what was going on. Pay attention though. Yeah, but normally what happens is they get up here and then they start floundering around because when we're pitching our businesses, especially if we're inexperienced at it, we're not quite sure what people are picking up on, you know, what we're putting down. So through this workshop, we're going to work on refining that message and also Also, one of the things for you, Ed, is increasing your vocal quality because you're a little more soft-spoken. John, you don't seem to have that problem. You're a little stronger in the voice. So those are the type of things we're going to go through in this workshop. Let's begin.
