In this exciting episode of “The Boost Podcast”, hosts Leon and Pablo sit down with Nick Honegger, Director of Marketing and Sales at Geekdom, to recap San Antonio Startup Week. The conversation covers highlights, takeaways, and the unique startup culture in San Antonio.
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Pablo Calvo: Linkedin
Guest:
Nick Honegger: LinkedIn
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Podcast:
Hosts:
Pablo Calvo: Linkedin
Guest:
Nick Honegger: LinkedIn
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Highlights:
1. San Antonio Startup Week:
- Nick shares insights into San Antonio Startup Week’s explosive success, breaking attendance records and emphasizing the potential of San Antonio as a startup hub. The event focused on community, investment, and support for local entrepreneurs.
- “Invest in San Antonio” Theme
- With a spotlight on funding opportunities within the city, the event encouraged entrepreneurs to consider San Antonio as a viable location for business growth. Key events included themes like diversity, Latinx, and innovation.
- Pitch It to Win It:
- A new initiative where daily winners were awarded $1,000 for their best elevator pitches. The winning pitches were selected through audience engagement and finalized by a panel of judges. This fun competition helped promote community support for local businesses.
- Funding Opportunities and the “Valley of Death”
- Nick discusses a common hurdle for startups known as the “Valley of Death”—the challenging period between early-stage funding and larger investment rounds. San Antonio is working to address this gap, especially for startups needing mid-range funding.
- The Importance of Community and Mentorship:
- Throughout the episode, Nick underscores the importance of community connections and Geekdom’s support network, which helps founders navigate the unique challenges of entrepreneurship. Geekdom mentors provide startups with valuable resources, advice, and networking opportunities.
Key Takeaways:
- Diverse Startup Community:
- Geekdom’s emphasis on inclusivity brought together startups from Latin America, women-led ventures, and tech innovators, among others.
- Valuable Connections:
- Events throughout the week connected founders with local mentors, industry players like H-E-B, and a supportive community willing to share insights and resources.
- Investment Growth:
- With almost $200,000 in funding distributed during the week, the event highlighted San Antonio as an emerging hub for startup investment.
Summary:
In this special episode, hosts Leon and Pablo welcome Nick Honegger, Director of Marketing at Geekdom, to discuss San Antonio Startup Week. Nick shares key insights from this exciting week filled with innovative pitches, networking events, and resources designed to empower local entrepreneurs. The conversation covers community highlights, successful pitches, and Geekdom’s ongoing efforts to drive investment in the San Antonio startup scene.
00:00:00 all right hello my name is Leon I’m Pablo we’re here on the Boost today with a special episode with our friend Nick hoger the director of marketing and sales at geekdom what’s going on everybody cool today we’re going to talk about San Antonio startup week uh pitch it to win it and then just you know kind of General geekdom stuff that’s happening around yeah MH um so Nick do we want to do we want to start with the pitch to win winners or do we want to talk San J startup week first let’s lead into it I want let’s get folks excited
00:00:40 about the week and then we’ll end with the winners just so they can get a little excitement first okay build some drama if perfect a little bit of drum roll I’m sure there’s somewhere on here that that’s a drum it’s been a week now so last week it was everyone kind of you could tell everyone went away they were tired they they got a lot of information and everybody was talking about it from the Geeks and drinks to the keynote speakers to each of the little little parts we did a live podcast Paulo you talk near
00:01:10 shore so what was kind of the feeling after it you know just from a an organizer’s perspective yeah I mean I think we were super excited going into this uh because our our big Focus this year was all about inves in San Antonio right and and the goal is to say hey like you can find funding in San Antonio there’s a big Community here so if you set up that as a theme and then go into an event and feels empty it would have been disaster you like oh man that’s the risk uh so the fact that we spent the
00:01:40 entire week breaking registration records attendance records engagement records and then we had the biggest party we’ve ever had for a startup week it just really I think got across the entire community and the staff that know San Antonio can be and is a serious player and the startup and small business world uh and I think this is our week to really celebrate that so it was a very good like we made it we’re a and we we can not wait for you know to do it again next year Well it it was an amazing event like from going to San
00:02:07 Antonio start up we preco to like this one it it felt like a very big conference you know there was locations here at geum there was lawn chass which was a spot you also had um the new InterContinental hotel as a spot so there was a lot of like spread to it but there was always folks walking from launch I to geek D to um the hotel it really felt like there was a lot and then the themes of the day I I thought that was a really cool kind of organizing method because the types of folks that turned out for Latin American
00:02:45 one the invest in Latin X it was it was fascinating you saw a lot of immigration lawyers you saw a lot of folks that were doing stuff in Latin America and then you also had the tech companies that came it was a cool mixture each day that essentially people that self-aligned with those like ideals and those message would come out and show up to the to the events they would they would mingled and they had like a a an easy conversation starter whereas you not KN the other the years but the other years you had a lot
00:03:17 more and it felt very big conference this year it kind of felt like micro each day and in programming and in the differences so that people could have a conversation that was just focused on the inv in community or invest in in Latin a yeah and I appreciate that feedback I think the the big thing for us this year was really about being intentional so it’s you know it’s hey if we want to show across this theme of kind of invest in like are there are there microt topics each day that we can dive into uh because at the end of the
00:03:47 day for a lot of our community members you know being an entrepreneur is hard having a startup company is hard right it’s obviously it’s already spooky you really want a community so if there’s a broad stroke like a vent it’s like not to say that it’s bad but it’s like okay like that’s useful I still want to go but when you can say Hey what if you’re a startup who’s what if you’re a startup who’s moving to San Antonio from Mexico where is that Community great we have that right like what if you’re like you
00:04:14 can Niche down a little bit and I think that’s the joy of conferences is that you think you’re on this island if and no one else has this crazy concept it’s like oh actually there’s a whole topic on that why don’t you come to this panel and then meet those peers because that’s the community we want to spark right and the way you get to those discussions is you have those to like like deeper days if you will um so I I love to hear that cuz I think that’s we really tried to have that come across this year so yeah
00:04:37 so f it was five days what just just for everybody Monday and I’m blanking on them I’m we’ll have to pull I have to cheat uh but I want to say it was I think the I think I’m going to get Monday wrong but I want to say it was like General diversity Latin x women Innovation and Tech and then San Antonio um and I’m pretty close on on most of those but we’ll see I I get it we’re a week away and also you you had so many like events so many little parts of social media so there there was a lot a lot going on my my real favorite day and
00:05:15 then came down to the to the invest in San Antonio and then the Latin X those two days the the Latin act just we’re in San Antonio and you know it’s large Hispanic population but a lot of times you don’t really I don’t really sense that 100% you know like everyone’s kind of Hispanic in some capacity but we don’t we don’t talk about it you know the Chamber of Commerce Hispanic chamber of commerce is the largest in the country for that but seeing all the folks that were coming here and like I just moved my company from Mexico uh
00:05:48 we’ve got an arm in you know Brazil we’ve got an arm in Costa Rica it was so cool to see that and have that kind of there and that’s what stuck out to me is just like wow there’s a lot of investment from other countries that are coming here and and I think one thing that was super cool about that I talk about Community Partners the reason we had such a strong presence that day is we leveraged there’s a group called anio Ventures um and Puro pitch was a part of that they’re like hey we invest in
00:06:17 latinx companies like you guys seem awesome throw a huge competition with some of the other folks over there at startup week so we can invest 35k into LX business I’m like that’s awesome like there just there are just groups out there that like hey we care about this you seem to be doing this uh so already for next year we’re looking for more folks that are just investing in specific communities CU we can be that venue I think that’s where like startup week is interesting geekdom can be very interesting because if folks
00:06:41 have that Capital we would love to deploy it in San Antonio uh and I think that was the perfect example of you know if we build it they will come CU all those days were just packed and they gave away I believe 30 or 35,000 that day yes I want to say it was in that in that realm um and the coolest part about that one too is they uh we specifically cheer out those is so it’s it’s not one team that took all of it but it’s a couple of teams took kind of a chunk out of that pool so that way they all have
00:07:05 next steps they can all grow and they’re all kind of plugged into that Capital Community yeah and I think the part that I don’t think any of us has touched on is just how much money was given through through the whole week Monday started off with the um pre- accelerator pitch that was $220,000 that went to um uh how do you say their name Grant Supply Grant app Grant Supply and they always spell it a little weird it’s it’s a it’s a company you know they always got to spell it just slightly it’s good um the
00:07:35 the women’s founder Network I believe it was gave away um additional money 30,000 that was waste away waste away and then the um the ladin one do you know who won that one uh I I do but I don’t know the name of the company put we’ll put it in but I think over the week it was almost I think all partners and stuff included like almost 200k just just in that week um if not more that might be too low but it’s one of those it’s enough of a number to be like in one week in San Antonio like there are opportunities and
00:08:07 that was just like sanctioned events yeah that just spur the moment that doesn’t include any of the like there was some in like Al Angels had some events that I heard that a lot of money deployed there and Al Angels deploys a lot of money but in the sense of one event one day one week like that was a big amount so I think it kind of highlights to your point just that s Antonio is not a market that is hard to raise money there’s some challenges and there’s some things to overcome but the San Antonio Market that
00:08:38 is that is like starting a business has so much support so much capital in various different ways no I I I super agree and I think that was the goal of the conference too is just kind of lifting that veil of hey you can launch in San Antonio it’s not always Austin or Dallas or Houston and I think the the coolest part about that is for us when you raise in s Antonio sometimes it’s oh I just don’t know where to go so so if we can show you the community like yes it might be a little bit harder to walk
00:09:05 in and know exactly who to get capital from but we have a way like bigger community in San Antonio to make sure you get plugged into where that Capital lives plus we’re way cheaper to live in so that capital is going to go farther right just to plug San Antonio a little bit but sure absolutely I think it all goes in tandem well one one thing I was going to say is just from my own experience of having done the near Shoring event um I mean I’ve been working in that space for so long but but yet I didn’t really know who the
00:09:31 players for that space in town even were you know who’s interested in it who likes to talk about that so when you’re talking about investing in community you also gave the Forum to help communities connect right I mean a community sometimes could be an interest it could be a topic matter it could be technology it could be whatever it is right you can form a community around anything but the fact that you have these different days to attract you know I I guess just different of professional life I guess
00:10:02 you know getting everyone together and it really I mean it was a great event because I got to meet so many people just from just being in a room to talk about something that was of interest at least to me funding aside you know I mean if that was one of the goals I was I would say a big success yeah well a I appreciate that b it it definitely is I think the goal especially with San Antonio is just you have to you have to build the bridges right you have to with anything be in the startup portal or
00:10:28 small business Community There’s You Are just so on an island sometimes so it’s like who are I you know who are my lifelines like who else is in this with me just to lean on to learn from resources you know I’ve made plent mistakes in my career but I’ve probably avoided 10 times as many just by asking folks around geekdom or like this community like Hey try is this a good idea they’re like oh God no like here’s this is horrendous for me like don’t do that do it this way um and I think those discussions are are critical and why
00:10:53 these events are so successful because people want those conversations because everybody wins at the end of the day through that yeah those conversations the and this is not an out for in any way but the The Mentor Network you you’ve got so many brilliant folks that you can turn to and say hey I have a very Niche problem you know like in in you know fundraising and like company organization like I just I’m helping on crypto stuff and finding somebody that’s done Financial law with crypto very hard thing to like just go
00:11:26 and Google that but asking through the network it was like everybody was like hey there’s this one lawyer that does that they’re out of like Bernie you know a little far but here’s the person like five people were like that’s the person and then you come and you tell them hey I talk to these people they’re so helpful like there’s never a hesitation within the San Antonio Network to say hey this is my cost structure this is what I can do for you to be helpful and then after that there there’s obviously
00:11:59 fees everyone has to live but there’s always so many people to say hey I want to just be helpful and and you know hey is it a conversation is it some guidance here’s you know some really interesting stuff like I’ve done it with sales tax like I’ve called people up and been like hey this is the very Niche thing all of its gray area and San Antonio has that and part of that is that geek them Network where you can go turn and ask and somebody points it to to to whoever it is you know like it’s just like the
00:12:27 near showing a lot of people are now pointing to Pablo to say hey he’s got some real expertise in near showing now you know like he was able to share that it was like oh hey I didn’t realize that resource was down the hall for me or oh he lives in the same neighborhood as me there was a lot of those like and it’s it’s a massive City like I think that’s the part that really gets missed in in the conversation you know you go to New York and you can get lost in New York very easily you know where is the tech scene where is the startup
00:12:59 scene where’s the business building scene there’s there there’s probably millions of resources but there’s also probably you know spread out through there s Antonio I feel like everybody kind of comes into these areas they go to launcha they go to geekdom they go to UTSA and then sbdc and it feels easier to find those resources you know you have Zach from nonprofits moves from Phoenix to here because through all the research it was always San Antonio seems to has a lot of stuff like maybe the marketing of it is
00:13:33 um like a little bit more Tech focused initially but a lot of it now like hey there’s also these resources here for you know a cpg or even um a service-based business at launch to say so it’s it’s grown exponentially from from those original Roots yeah and I I love that you say that too because I think the what separates us as well kind of for San Antonio again plug the city I love it here uh is that are bigger players participate in I would say smaller events right San Antonio start week big but you know Grant it caps out
00:14:07 around like two two and half thousand people so we’re growing it and it’s growing every year but it’s not a like a million plus person event uh but even for an event of that size we get Big Industry players like HB to come in and say hey if you want to sell it at our stores here’s the cpg talk they have their own track so it’s I think that it’s that investment from the community of say hey even though we’re you know one of the biggest grocery retailers on the planet we’re going to send you know
00:14:31 go come talk to our team who’s like these are the people that are going to buy your product here’s how you get in the shelves like if you’re a cpg company like that’s the player you go be with and I think it’s cultural to San Antonio you don’t you you know I talk to folks about that and they’re astonished because they’re used to a croger Safeway all one of the same company in some capacity being like Oh hey here’s a slotting fee here’s this yeah here get in line and we’ll talk to you eventually
00:14:54 go through our lawyers for no they just send their team like oh yeah come on let’s chat like who cares I think it’s it’s that willness to have a an intro conversation and kind of like what you were alluding to earlier it’s not like it’s magically free after you’ve met with them for 12 you know 12 meetings but it’s one of those that everyone is so willing to be helpful and then that sets you up to where hey if I’ve helped you enough where you’re going to be successful to the point where you’re so
00:15:16 successful you actually need to hire an attorney or hire a marketing team full-time awesome but I’m an option and if not that’s okay and I think that to some folks is just so foreign but for here it’s just so normalized noral uh which is great cuz then it’s you help everybody grow and then hey I’m winning so I’m going to reward you back cuz now you need to now I can hire you awesome it’s a it’s a winwin mentality and very few places do I sense that all the time because it is a doggy dog world out
00:15:45 there it is it is hard but I I feel like there’s a there’s a community here that’s rooted in that that geekdom has fostered that launcha is fostering that um you know Tech Block is fostering there’s so many of these organizations that continuously build and help and and push along a really great narrative that I think everybody in the community kind of adopts to and says okay we’re going to we’re going to be helpful in every single way so as an organizer what are some of the trends that you noticed this year versus maybe
00:16:19 previous years yeah so I’ll take that kind of two ways uh one is what we saw kind of during the event and one is what we what we saw before and kind of influence our planning um and and I think from a planning standpoint one of the biggest things we saw uh was you know gred the team of the event was hey we would go to San Antonio but like you can’t raise money um San Antonio doesn’t work it’s there’s you know ever since rack bace went away so it’s you know the city’s dead I was like oh my God like
00:16:46 all this Doom and Gloom um and you’re like well like really if you if you dive into that a little more like you find out like none of that’s really true like yes it’s you know Capital got more expensive for the world after Co like you know the there like all these Trends around like how do you like raise money and you know yes it’s a little tighter and you kind of see Trends in the valley of like especially like Tech getting choked out uh but that’s not necessarily the trends here it’s just harder to find
00:17:11 stuff uh so we said Hey how do we as as organizers and advocates for the city kind of really start changing that Trend um so we kind of took it upon ourselves okay we’re just going to do a whole bunch of like pitch competitions money given away uh and then also trying to theme that per kind of category to say to to even at the categorical level there is like hey depending on who you are where you’re at there are resources for you and really just show like there is stuff in San Antonio like if in a
00:17:38 perfect world uh people would see that conference and tell their friends like man you have to move to San Antonio like there is stuff happening here like some of my favorite wins coming out of that week were we had folks from Houston and Dallas and Austin be like oh man like this was awesome like I didn’t think San Antonio had anything like this and I was like great like if we could just change the view of San Antonio like cuz cuz it’s just true like we have such a powerful Community with how that works
00:18:02 so so pre-planning it was all about that like really like reshaping The Narrative for the city because I think that’s how we’re going to grow San tell the next like 3 to 5 years there’s a bunch coming downtown like let’s kind of we need to be kind of Forefront of changing that mindset um during the event I think a lot of what we saw was a kind of reinforcing that need for investment but but B that desire for Community uh where it’s folks where you know oh like I don’t want to get the in trouble so but
00:18:30 we had folks saying like oh I called out sick these days to come to this event or like oh I had to do all this stuff cuz I I wanted to be here like these conversations so powerful and I think it’s people kind of remembering like oh man like you can learn so much face to face in meeting people and not being able afraid to ask questions um and just driving those Community Driven stories and just being willing to like put yourself out there I think you saw that even with pitch it to win it one of one
00:18:55 of our contestants uh found us through Instagram like ran to us on the last day and was like oh my God like I’ve been seeing this everywhere this is so cool like I can’t believe this is in my city that I can just go meet these people um so I think one of the challenges for next year kind of out of what we learned from that is is the trend of what we saw was you know we people want these resources how do we get in front of them sure uh cuz one of the biggest things you get with community building right is
00:19:21 like for every step you take forward you have to there’s Skeptics there’s people that are like well it’s not really like that or hey isn’t like this or hey this isn’t perfect and and know every to everybody’s credit like they’re probably right in some way right it’s not like we made waved a magic wand and everything’s amazing um but the goal is like hey we we really do have this community we really do have these resources like we want you to come take advantage of them like how do we help you um and I think
00:19:44 that was the the biggest Trend throughout the week is this kind of like oh wow you do this like this is here like oh cpg is here too or or this is here too or you’re not just Tech it’s not it’s like no like San Antonio can grow all these things but we have to do it together so I think that’s going to as we come to our like 10th year anniversary which is next year I think you’ll see a big lean in from us on like really activating communities and showing people like hey this is here hey here are the heroes you have to go plug
00:20:11 into uh because we saw a big need of that at the conference so it’s okay how do we take that momentum and keep it permanent I think is what we want to lean into I think you accomplish that and then some uh something I a term that I heard thrown around a lot in many discussions I heard it come out of many many different participants SMS and we’ve been in conversation panels um and just in general you know having a drink and just talking about it the term Valley of Death explain that please yes so this is if I had a a bajillion
00:20:43 dollars this is where I would I would put it right now U so San Antonio has an interesting problem at least that we think uh at the geekdom side is there are a lot of funding opportunities for companies here from ideation to I would say it’s maybe like your seed so so from hey I’m starting out maybe I got a micro Grant maybe I got a free office maybe I raised my first like 10 to $50,000 to actually start my adventure right I’m like I’m kind of going on this journey um and then we have some really good
00:21:10 resources in the community that will get you through uh kind of a couple steps down right where it’s okay I need to go raise like a million dollars I’ll partner with Capital Factory I’ll I’ll do like a big series a through like an animal Angels but even then that’s mostly Angel funding um we have this weird you know mystery gap or the valley of death mhm which is for those folks who are like hey you know like I probably need to raise like 250k to $500,000 where I’ve done a seed round I’ve got some Angel
00:21:38 money maybe I’ve raised up to like 50 to 100K um which again super important like a very good skill set that’s probably where we as geek them as our sweet spot as we get you ready to get that first kind of six figure investment uh but that’s enough to get going um and you are way farther away operationally from being able to go raise like seven eight figures so what do you do between U and right now I think that’s where where we struggle if anywhere as a city is is having that in between we don’t have a
00:22:05 lot of folks broadly speaking that right those like quarter million dollar kind of checks like yes there’s s funds yes we have some great like funding opportunities but that’s that’s probably the hardest way to raise Capital right now um that’s kind of the value of death is like how do we get you from you started there’s a big jump before your next big raise like who’s filling that kind of that in between investment if you will of like your first maybe round day mhm no you’re you’re you’re absolutely right about it and one of the
00:22:32 things that I’ve seen just from being a mentor here at geum and I think Leon would concur uh you know you’re a mentor too right yeah so I mean all of us are mentors is that operationally the startup is many times really heavy into the ideation but beyond that operationally how do they structure how do they Market how do they position themselves what’s their pitch you know how do they brand I mean just basic things that you know any established company effectively has but I think sometimes the startup is slow to
00:23:07 get to that point you know so even from a funding perspective you know you might be able to get some you might win a competition you might make some you know you get some initial inroads now what do you do you know because it’s not just simply and and I hate to say this I’m sure people are going to git their teeth when I say this but it’s not simply just funding your lifestyle you are building a company you’re not just buying groceries no you know what I mean so there is an investment that has to
00:23:31 happen and I think geekdom also does a very very good job of preparing uh you know uh members for that transition but would you say that maybe uh part of the conversation is also getting people to take that action to say look we’ve got all of these programs take advantage of them yeah because you know I I I noticed that you have a lot of events and sometimes like some people show up to some events you know when they all can benefit but you don’t see the same faces at the same events no I I super agree I think one of the hardest
00:24:04 parts I think just as a Founder right is you got a lot of stuff going on and you have to kind of make those decisions of you know how much time do I have to put in my company versus you know like do I have to still work by 9 to5 like what is my cost for like do I have kids that you know there there’s things in your life regardless of where you’re at that will impact like what you can do as a Founder so I think the most important thing you can do is to back and say okay like what is a realistic number that I need to
00:24:29 truly bootstrap this company um and if I could you know build pnls I’m such a financial like nerd on a ramble here but it’s like you should you should know regardless of where you’re at like after you know come to a startup boot camp it’s free get your idea figure out your MVP and then as you’re going through like the acceler you know go through our programs this is T there but you should you should know if you’re going to go raise money or ask for Capital like your opt costs like no like your true like margins like why
00:25:00 does that matter like what does scaling look like because then what that will do is when you go have those larger conversations especially like I’ll take cpg for an example uh HB did a wonderful talk and they’re like you’d be surprised at how many people come pitch to us wanting to be in the store and they don’t know what it would cost to even scale up to meet our demand and I’m like that’s like that’s the one thing you would need to know and like what else would you go to them and say if it’s not
00:25:23 like oh here’s how I go from X to Y so I think it’s it’s hey if you’re going to take advantage of the program in mhm like make sure you have your like business Basics covered first so so as you grow you can take advantage of like okay if this is my MVP and it costs this and I make y great go try and get 100 customers what happens tell that story because if that goes great that’s the narrative you can use to go raise Capital right but if you just try and Skip those steps you’re like ah it’s impossible to get money here it’s we
00:25:49 really you got to try like you got to do some of the hard step first before you can go raise money um and I think kind of like what you were saying if people and skip that you end up missing some pretty critical things you need along the way which is why these events are so important which is why like be our programming or whatever programming you’re using like know how your business Works before you’re like oh like I needed $200,000 cuz if you if you go ask for $200,000 and you break it down like oh
00:26:15 I’ll put like 50 Grand in marketing and like 100k here and like I’ll hire someone it’s like no you won’t like that’s not and just Spears very quick yeah like and like how long will it last you like what’s your Runway like where does it go like it’s not just because you were six figures at your job and you want to like pay yourself that like you just you like no one will give you that Capital um so I think it’s it’s having those kind of canid conversations with other mentors and peers of like what is
00:26:40 your true cross to run your business and then solve that and say okay like what my Runway be if I get Sweat Equity Partners like what could they contribute what are our hours look like and it’s going to be a grind in the beginning and that’s okay it’s not forever but the only way you know that and can map that out is like Financial modeling that is you know and I I will die on that of like Financial predictions are so important to like be Savvy with like know what your business is doing yeah and I love that because those
00:27:07 conversations are often not had initially you know you get an idea you do all that stuff you put the brand together you do all those build it they will come so excited about the yes and then figuring out those parts so now money perspective we’re talking pitch it to win it that was ,000 a day we want to talk a little bit about that we want to announce the winners yeah yeah it’s like a drum roll so so for full context if folks listening have zero idea what pitch was I’ll give you the elevator pitch if you
00:27:38 will and then I’ll announce the winners uh to kind of double down on our commitment of investing in San Antonio now we said we’re going to give away a ,000 per day of the week for the best elevator pitch and the way we decided that is essentially you got the top likes the top views or the top shares of the day that kicked you to the finals and then a panel of Judges picked a winner from each day um so I’m going to go day and then I’m going to say the winner of each day and then we’re going to reach out to you all on social at
00:28:03 some point after this goes live but for Monday we had Marco for Tuesday we had AP or or Ashley she was by AP here at geekdom Wednesday we had David Thursday we had tasky which was a student win that was just super cool and Friday we had move Club ESS so we’re going to reach out to you all if you ping us on this podcast link we’ll ping you that way too but all of you are getting 1,000 bucks man congratulations hey congrats thank you so much for coming out and helping us smash a lot of social records
00:28:32 um but could not be more excited for that kind of competition and that will be back next year we had a radically good positive response to that but congrats again you super excited that was really great and and everyone’s pitch like when we were I was watching I think I watched almost every single one at least at least three times like they were a lot of them were really well practiced there were some tight days where you looked at them and you were like okay everybody’s got a really great idea or they’ve got a really great
00:29:02 business and a lot of these folks like like you were saying some some of them came to actually just pitch it they saw a post on Instagram I I heard a few folks ask around because they saw a casat article or casat coverage they were excited at hey I can actually see if this is a great idea it was almost a an amazing way to validate proof of concept validate everything there was one that we and part of this is we interviewed them on the on the podcast we get to kind of talk to them one of them was a concept idea of like a
00:29:36 mindfulness app and it was it was interesting to see what was the actual trigger for this it’s like I had a kid and and then hey I want to be present and you know I’m struggling to balance work and this and a lot of those really great ideas from businesses come from a personal pain or a personal experience II like uh part of the the pre accelerator was um the Cookie Company the Grammy Gramm crackers Grammy’s crackers like the fact that they were like hey we can’t find a cracker for our grandson and we’re going to explore
00:30:14 something it’s not too sweet but it’s also nutritious in some ways and that was like a personal pain that scaled up they went and tested it a lot of those are really cool stories and I think somebody actually getting that validation and it’s such a low stakes in terms of standing in front of a camera and just kind of dealing with me for two minutes it it was a cool thing to see and and watch and you know kind of see those excitements and the people talk about it through startup week like people were actually looking for you
00:30:49 they’re like have you seen Nick that was I I will say it I’m super glad we did it I’m very excited to keep it going I I think one of the things that surprised us cuz when we mock this up like oh this will either be interesting or we’ll talk to no one throughout the week um and we ended up having to cut every day we capped every day at like 10 or 12 people cuz there was too many pitches right it’s like the best problem to have because we like I don’t know throat was getting sore yeah it’s just like I was
00:31:14 like oh my God like uh which is great because I just think it shows that there are so many folks in San Antonio that given the opportunity they would try something it’s like it’s like go if if you can learn anything from the pitch to win a competition it’s just just try it like come to a boot camp come do free programming like go to launer say we have go go to The Tech Block pitch events those are coming up in November just to learn and say hey like I can do this and I I think if if these events
00:31:42 can do anything it’s just showing folks that it’s not impossible you don’t have to have some crazy background you don’t have to come from this like crazy like wealthy family that like sees your initial Venture like you just have to have this desire to have this you know you’ve had this personal pain Point that’s not getting solved like tell a story about it and that it’s that a step one to like getting a good you know traction for your idea one one thing I was going to say and know it’s it’s it’s
00:32:03 an idea that I have but I think you should be a game show host you did a really good job on those I’m ready it should be next year uh game show them I’m ready price price of right if you’re watching I mean I’m ready to perfect I want a I want a wheel somebody could be van a white there we go I’ll be like spay a new to your pets ready to go no it was it was really great I I’m actually excited you know after this I’d love to you know go do followups these folks like I want to see where these go and I every single one that I was able
00:32:37 to talk to I always told them there’s a 3-day boot camp like hit that up you’re going to go do lean canvas you’re going get a pitch deck going I think that was kind of like a very easy Next Step it’s free it doesn’t require the geek the membership it’s kind of a great way to to Market and advertise for geekdom in that funnel way but the fact that it’s free just go there get a talk to people and then get a talk to the mentors like there’s so many folks that I think did that and hopefully I see them there I
00:33:09 love the mentor on those on those weekend ones Saturday and Sundays that I hope that I keep seeing them because these ideas are just like you know small businesses are the backbone of America they’re the reason why this country is is very prosperous in in so many ways so seeing that as is really exciting I’m glad that they could get the $1,000 now I’m hoping that they utilize it and start you know well Grant apply was one of those people yes yes did did they yeah they came they came through the
00:33:40 boot camp yes came the boot camp 120k through pitch competition I think they’re go to the next accelerator 2 I more of the story is there’s a lot of cool things you could do if you just keep working on your idea words go take advantage of the free resources those get you plugged into funding resources those get you plugged into mentors and and most of our mentors know or have access to Angel networks which will get you even more money so I think it’s just like the whole theme of the conference like Hey how do you start stuff in San
00:34:08 Antonio go to where your community is because they will have places to point you people to introduce you to and that’s how you scale right you’re going to scale way 10x faster through you know other people than trying to do it yourself it just it does not make sense 100% well I’m really glad we can sponsor San startup week help collaborate on this and you know looking forward to maybe next year on that but congrats to everybody that won and then Nick Ab thank you so much for helping organize us keeping us on track and and just
00:34:40 doing doing those pitch winits every day no but super huge thanks to you all again I think this is a cool combination of how do we grow San Antonio it truly is you know one entrepreneur at a time and the way you you’ve kind of fuel that Spirit you just get out there you just you pitch it to win it if you will you know don’t be afraid to share your story and I think that’s why this is cool to do yeah and that’s the premise of the show like we we started and hey a lot of people were asking us for infomercial
00:35:05 type things and we’re like we’ll get you in front of a mic we’ll get you in front of a camera tell us everything we’ll give you clips and that that kind of started down the podcast route for us and now we’re just we want to help these folks kind of get some some push and there and we’ve heard people actually Realtors come to tell us that we’ been on the show hey somebody watched our episode and we they bought a house for me in maret yeah they were from like Delaware there so it’s really cool to
00:35:36 see that and I know like some of the companies that we’ve done with they go and use those clips and then they put them on about Pages they do a lot of cool stuff with them and it’s really fun to help them along so yeah it it’s in the spirit of what you already share no yes I will I’ll take this moment to you plug for the Boost if plug eek them a whole bunch of times um these guys are great if you get invited to the show come be on the show you’ll learn a lot you’ll have good conversations I think
00:36:00 this is just another really cool example of two awesome folks in the gek community that have created a way to have another wwin situation where we share the stories of you know our Founders or folks in this community and help them win by getting a bigger audience but it also is just you learn a lot from just listening and those stories matter at ton so thank you all for sharing those and making that happen we won’t cry we won’t cry well thank you so much Nick if you’re watching if you’re listening subscribe to the Boost
00:36:25 you can go on uh the boost. FM and then you can check out geekdom geek.com too see you next time bye