Sonali and I have been working a project to make a light weight and hosted project management tool. We’re calling it SCMPLE and yesterday was our first pitch. You can checkout Our Slides.
For those that don’t know, Startup Riot gives startups like ours a forum to present and connect with like minded individuals. We’re barely out of the idea stage, but we still had a bunch of people come up and talk to us about our idea. Which rocked, because we were the second up and I wasn’t all that awake yet.
There wasn’t very much that didn’t rock about the event. Given that we’re pitching a Git based idea, I would have preferred to have not immediately followed the keynote by Chris Wanswrath of GitHub fame. He gave a great talk, has a very cool product, and is a super nice guy, so it’s hard to be upset about that. The overall message of “do what you’re passionate about” resonated strongly within the audience.
The pitches were surprisingly interesting. You’d think that watching 17 or so companies present in a row would get boring or repetitive, but neither happened. Even the bad pitches or unreadable slides were worthwhile because of the Backnoise, though it did go a little overboard.
The only real downside of StartupRiot is that I’ve had to switch to TweetDeck. Just met enough new folks to break the camel’s back with Hahlo.
As a presenter, I’ve got to thank Sanjay Parekh, not just for the main event, but all the free advice and help in getting ready for it. It was my first pitch out to an audience that didn’t know exactly what I was talking about. I also need to thank Scott Burkett and Jeff McConnell, who both gave some great guidance during the practice session.
Also as a presenter, I wouldn’t mind paying to present. The fees for StartupRiot really are nominal, given the value I obtained for it. If there is anything that will keep the event going, I’m all for it.
