The First Pitch

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon earlier this month, I met with a new mentor from the Society of Women Engineers. Charisse Rodriguez also started out as a mechanical engineer and then moved on to become a founder and CEO. We had a short conversation about what I can do to prepare myself for that same transition, and she brought up the Small Business Development Center (SBDC). After our conversation, I visited the Los Angeles SBDC website and found that they were hosting a virtual workshop on the basics of a startup later that afternoon. My schedule was clear, so I signed up.

I was immediately uncomfortable in the Zoom call. There were far fewer participants than I was expecting, and the presenter, Gary Polk from Pacific Resources Group, asked us to turn our cameras on and unmute. Oh, boy, I thought, I'm actually going to have to participate. At this point in my journey. I wasn't yet used to calling Chirp a business. It was a passion project, a fun thing that I was working on in my free time to help me gain first-hand experience in running a business.

To my horror, Polk asked us to take turns pitching our company so that we could share what we do. I had never pitched before. I knew that it was something that I would have to learn to do eventually, but I wasn't expecting to have to pitch until I was ready to speak to investors, which wouldn't be the case until years later. Or so I thought. I pitched Chirp to the best of my ability. Polk then asked me several questions about my target audience:

Age range?
Around my age, so college age and under 30.

Gender?
Typically female.

Income?
Typically in the $70k-$80k range.

Give me three things that they like.
Hmm...iced coffees, matchas, fashion...

Polk then praised me for my clear definition of my target audience. Through the workshop, I was able to put a name to this audience: my beachhead market. I know that Chirp can go beyond blind box collectors in my demographic, but they're the first community that I want to target when Chirp launches.

The rest of the workshop was uneventful. I listened carefully, took notes on my iPad, but participated minimally. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I was shaking from adrenaline after receiving praise from Polk. It was my first time pitching, and it seemed like I had done pretty well. I wrote down the names of the other attendees to connect with on LinkedIn. To my surprise, I already had a connection request in my inbox.

The universe works in mysterious ways. It was an investor who heard my pitch and wanted to chat; he works with similar business models and had some thoughts on Chirp. This was both horrifying and exciting. I was nowhere near ready to talk to an investor, but I gladly took him up on the opportunity to pick his brain about my business. I cancelled my plans that evening to spin up a pitch deck to send him by the end of the day.

He looked the pitch deck over, and we met virtually later in the week. He shared some advice about my business model and tips on how to stand out to investors. I thought that planning for investment was something that would fall on my to-do list in the far future, but he brought up some great points on where I can improve early on. I told him that I was still working on my MVP and probably wouldn't have updates for him for months, but it was still great to get insight from an investor with no ulterior motive.

I'm really starting to get comfortable with this notion of doing virtual meetings with people who I barely know. I've found that it's low effort, but I gain so much wisdom from those who have more experience than me. I'm still learning how to ask for help instead of trying to re-invent the wheel. As the sole founder and an engineer, I tend to have the mindset that I can do anything and everything on my own. I'm trying my best to unlearn this.

The LA SBDC will be seeing me again soon.