I still can’t believe that we went to SXSW EDU and pitched Lemonerdy University! It was our first pitch live on stage. I have pitched once before by video, but never in front of an audience and judges. My co-founder for Lemonerdy U, my brother David, has pitched in front of judges on Zoom before, but both of us were doing something totally new by pitching in the Student Startup Competition.
We drove from Chicago to Austin, and it took a LONG TIME. We stopped in Dallas to see friends on the way down to Austin, and my oldest brother flew in to support us.
We were making changes to the pitch right up until it was time to compete, so our brains were really getting a workout. The pitch had to be memorized, and we could only have five slides to illustrate our idea. We had five minutes to pitch and five minutes of Q&A. Once we got to Austin, we practiced in the car, in the hotel room, in the hotel lobby – anywhere that we could find time and space to practice, we did. We even brought our own microphones to make sure that we practiced the way that we would be pitching on the stage.
We didn’t win, but we met some fantastic people committed to helping us get Lemonerdy University up and running. David made a mini-documentary about our experience that we will share on Patreon. Make sure you’re a patron so that you don’t miss it. In the meantime, check out our pitch!
