Next Generation: Unveiling the Contenders (part one)

[00:00:04] Pilar: What am I looking for in a winning pitch?

[00:00:06] Mitra: We're really looking for investible ideas that we personally will put our money into. That's what's going to win. So if it's too small an idea, it's really your personal hobby, or if it's a classroom project that isn't really ready to scale, neither one of those is gonna work.

[00:00:22] Pilar: Sometimes I think founders get a little ahead of themselves and that can hurt the pitch versus helping.

[00:00:28] Kevin: What's our game plan? Of course, it's to win.

[00:00:32] Bilal: And so, the main focus right now is honing in on what's true to us, what our secret sauce is.

[00:00:38] Kevin: We framed it up in a way that was focused on kind of here's what's broken and the opportunity that the industry's missing out on...

[00:00:44] Alex: It's almost like kind of addressing the elephant in the room, right?

[00:00:48] Bilal: If I could describe how I feel, I'd say anxious, I'm very excited to, you know, go through this journey, and excited to, to find out what I learned from it all honestly.

[00:01:00] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And if you’re a This is Small Business regular listener, you know that I love pointing out all the key takeaways by the end of each episode and I’ll be doing the same here! I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:26] Mitch: And I'm your co-host Mitch Gilbert, the CEO and co-founder of Oya FemTech Apparel and a former Rice Business Plan competition competitor. So you know, I'll be giving you the inside scoops on all my lessons learned and my thoughts about these competitors given that I previously placed at this pitch competition.

[00:01:43] Andrea: In our first episode, we gave you a ton of info on the Rice Business Plan Competition, like how the competitors are competing to win 350k dollars – I still get shocked by that amount every time I say it because it’s a LOT of money. And that amount of money can make quite a difference in your business.

[00:02:00] We also we gave you a glimpse into the teams we’re following throughout the competition, but in this episode, we’ll be digging deeper into two of our four teams to really understand their product, what they’ll be doing with the money, and most importantly how they plan on winning!

But before we get into that I wanted to break down how the competition will go. So, the Rice Business Plan Competition is made up of three rounds and three days. On the first day the competitors get the opportunity to participate in a practice round! They present their pitch in 15 minutes and then get 15 minutes of super helpful feedback from the judges. Here's what Mitra Miller, an angle investor, commercial real estate investor, and one of the Rice Business Plan Competition judges has to say about that practice round:

[00:02:45] Mitra: I've been judging at the Rice Business Plan competition for 20 years now. Year after year there are some pitfalls that you see teams continually fall into. One is not going to the feedback round. [00:03:00] So the Rice Business Plan competition has an amazing opportunity for teams to fly in and go to a feedback round with judges like me and a bunch of others of us who volunteer our time to listen to your pitch and give you some free feedback before you actually start the competition. It is invaluable, and I can tell you that some of the other volunteers who come and do that are incredibly impressive CEOs, investors, people with names that if you look them up, you're gonna be absolutely gobsmacked that they're there doing that, and yet that's how they give back. So make sure you take advantage of that opportunity and listen to them.

[00:03:40] Andrea: Taking feedback in general is always important, especially as you build a business. Mitch, could you tell us about your experience with the feedback round? Did you end up needing to completely change your pitch or did you just have to tweak a few things here and there?

[00:03:57] Mitch: Well, Rice Business Plan competition is one of the only competitions [00:04:00] where you get such extensive feedback around, and I think by doing that, they really help startups grow. So whether you place or not, your pitch and your business will improve because you get so much feedback. But it is grueling. So we had an advisor and so what our pitch looked like at the beginning versus the end, like we were still selling vagina pants, but what it looked like was very different. And I was so shy to talk about my own experiences with feminine health and why that was the impetus for starting Oya. And by the end, we had a picture of a crying vagina on like our second slide, and I was completely owning that narrative. So I think that the feedback were very helpful.

[00:04:45] Andrea: I love that you leaned into that. So, on the second day of the competition, the teams will go through the first round where they get to pitch for 15 minutes and then go through 20 minutes of questions and answers from the judges. AND they get another 15 mins of feedback. [00:05:00] By the end of the second day, the semi-finalists are announced. On the third day, the last two rounds take place. First, our competitors will go through the semi-final round where they present their pitch and get grilled with more Q and A’s from the judges, then the finalists get selected. And four hours after they get selected, they present their pitches for the last time in the final round. Honestly, this all sounds like a LOT! And the turnaround time to implement the feedback they receive is really short...

[00:05:30] Mitch: Which is why it's critical to have a mentor or an advisor who's been through this process, who's there with you. Like I think we were practicing right after we got the feedback day of, and then we had an evening to make the changes, and then we were practicing again at 7:00 AM because we were on LA time versus central time, which is Texas time. So we were up really early and you really only get a day, [00:06:00] and I would even say you have to be really intentional about who you're practicing in front of, because within a day you can't practice in front of everybody. And so, maybe you get one or two people, so you really wanna make sure that you're making the most out of those one or two people that you've been able to practice in front of.

[00:06:22] Andrea: Let’s get to know our teams, starting with Outmore Living.

[00:06:26] Kevin: I'm Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living. At Outmore Living, we are building the most innovative and comfortable outdoor living products ever. Our first product line heated outdoor furniture launches this fall and will allow consumers to spend more time outdoors than ever before. The idea for Outmore living started Thanksgiving 2020 while sitting around a fire at my parents' home in Atlanta. Despite being wrapped in blankets and huddling around the fire, 10 minutes in, everyone wanted to go inside because they were cold. It was in that moment that it clicked to me. Fires bring people together, but they don't really keep you warm. As everyone was leaving, I blurted out. I wish our seats were heated and out more living was born.

[00:07:00] Alex: My name's Alex Duncan. I'm co-founder and COO of Outmore Living. Before getting my MBA, I spent over six years as an army officer. I was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, an aviation officer. I met Kevin at the University of Texas McCombs in the MBA program, we were assigned to the same group in a class called New Venture Creation. It was there that Kevin brought in the idea of heated outdoor furniture, and the rest is history as they say.

Outmore is re-imagining the future of outdoor spaces. We're designing a more comfortable outdoor experience by integrating technology into premium outdoor furniture, beginning with heated outdoor chairs and sofas in a beautiful, sustainable, FSC certified teak frame. Why are we doing this? Well, because like many of you, we know that there's something different about conversing and connecting with one another outdoors, a round of fire over a meal. And we want moments like that to happen more often, and we want moments like that to not end early on account of being uncomfortable from cold. [00:08:00] In short, our mission is to help everyone be out more.

[00:08:05] Andrea: At this point in time, the teams have 2 weeks to go before they pitch their ideas at the Rice Business Plan Competition. And Kevin and Alex have been working tirelessly to find and patch up any holes in their pitch.

[00:08:16] Alex: There seems to be a disconnect between the way our pitch deck reads and the way our conversations go. We're trying to minimize that cognitive dissonance, if you will. There's some who believe that furniture is not. A super attractive investible industry, and we disagree. We don't think that's axiomatic. We propose a new type of outdoor company, and so how do we best bring people along for that journey? Tell them a story, answer their questions, address their objections in such a way that gives them no choice but to come along and, and be a part of the Outmore journey.

[00:08:47] Kevin: On the surface, our product and company is super easy to understand. Heated outdoor furniture so you can stay comfortable when it's cold outside. Who wouldn't want that? Where it gets complicated is explaining how we grow from a product to a brand with a suite of products. [00:09:00] How we build a business model that's different than all other furniture brands that have either failed or struggled with profitability. Why we are choosing an omnichannel go-to-market strategy instead of focusing on just D to C or just b2b. Finally, why our business model is so unique compared to other comparable brands and what really sets us apart? Our team knows all these answers, but it is sometimes hard to concisely explain them without over complicating a company and a vision that is at its core, just easy to understand.

[00:09:30] Alex: Our game plan is with a relentless focus on business operation tasks. For that approach them with a focus attention to detail, so is not to prolong any further than is necessary. Time is of the essence. Most importantly, it's properly order my time in light of a brand new baby, understanding what is most important and allocate my time accordingly.

Kevin has made sure to understand that. I am supposed to and need to take the time to welcome my new baby, support my wife and love on my family in this time. [00:10:00] And, and he is there to pick up any slack that, that I have to defer, in this period of time leading up to rice. And with that said, I'm going to push and push into it more and, and find and dig deep and find the energy and time and make it work in such a way that I try to do the best I can in both areas. And finally, it's to set aside time for Kevin and I to immerse ourselves in the creative active storytelling. That creative, active storytelling is also known as a pitch deck, but we need space and time to breathe, and the deck does too. And it's just a different mindset for us. It stands in the start composition to the mindset of, of operational execution, where it's. It's whack-a-mole. Knock one up, knock one down. Our engineers ask, do we like option A or option B? Our designer asks, do we like fabric C or fabric D, and we knock these tasks down. That is a different mentality than the creative space we have to curate in order to tell our story the best way we possibly can.

[00:10:55] Kevin: It's funny when you're going from zero to one with a company, your game plans and goals are constantly changing. [00:11:00] So six months ago, if you had to ask me what would be our goal, it would've been to have been accepted into the Rice Business Plan competition. But now that we've achieved that goal, it's shifted to, well, let's win this thing. and it's, it's really interesting when you're moving so fast and, and having so many wins and losses so rapidly, when you're building a company from scratch, your goals are just constantly changing. So when I think about our game plan, it's, come in, put our best foot forward, you know, meet as many potential investors, customers, whoever it may be, um, but also to win it. And that, that would be, that would be a huge accomplishment.

[00:11:35] Andrea: Wow, sounds like they’ve got a lot on their plate. The pitch competition is already an intense journey. But add to that a baby AND a launch coming soon?

[00:11:44] Mitch: Yeah. They definitely have a lot to juggle and I think you have to be intentional about... Rice, you have to pitch with two co-founders. So you have to be intentional about which co-founder you're choosing and whether they have bandwidth to even show up for practice [00:12:00] in the way that they need to get it done. I think co-founders are helpful because they can see things that you can't see and they can fill in spaces, but if your co-founder is not prepared to be in front of an audience, that can also be hurtful to you and your brand. And so when we pitched, I had four other co-founders and I was very intentional optics wise about choosing which co-founder I wanted to pitch with me. So, although I worked with one a lot more. And another one was better at marketing and another one was better at the science and understanding the product. And even finance. I chose our legal co-founder who lived in Texas.

[00:12:47] Andrea: Alex also mentioned going from Business mode to creative mode to be able to work on the pitch, is that something you struggled with when you were working on your pitch for Oya?

[00:12:55] Mitch: We were born out of business plan competition. So I didn't have that issue. [00:13:00] But I would say if you were born out of an environment where you were making sales, like I think their team comes from the military and target, so retail experience. So they're probably immediately concentrating on sales as opposed to learning how do you tell a story and how do you tell it in an engaging way with the right optics to be able to attract investors. I could see how that could require a mind state shift.

[00:13:30] Andrea: I'm excited to see what their pitch sounds like now that we have this backstory as well. Up next is Unchained.

[00:13:37] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

[00:14:00] Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:14:40] Bilal: My name is Bilal Issifou, founder of Unchained, Inc. We are a turnkey solution that removes the bounds of geography through our technology and helps companies increase brands through our ambassadors. Unchained Inc. Is a future of work solution that combines the power of people and technology to help corporations strategically engage diverse talent. [00:15:00] There's been millions of corporations investing in diverse early talent recruitment processes. Although there have been a lot of investment in this area, engagement and retention amongst that talent has still been relatively stagnant. This reason is because career services historically doesn't really know how to engage students at a high level. In order for your company to stand out, you have to actually either invest in development, invest in engagement, or partner with a company that can grow your brand to the student side. And so that's what our solution helps companies do through our technology and through our ambassador program.

The story about how Unchained started. I was a freshman at North Carolina when I was a pre-law student. I was a very ambitious pre-law student, and this was, you know, pre remote work, pre virtual career fairs. I, I went to the in-person career fair, and went through the formalities of that, because I went to a, a primarily STEM focused school. So being a pre-law student at a STEM focus school, your career fair odds are, you know, not that high. [00:16:00] Ended up landing my first internship with the Office of Civil Rights.

And so through that experience I learned I had a passion for connecting minorities to opportunities. Now, although I didn't really specifically have a passion for like the construction industry in that sense, I reflected that, you know, I was a H B C U student who really wanted an internship bad. Yeah, the school resources wasn't my best help. I ended up finding it through outside resources, how many other students could benefit from a platform like that. And so, uh, June 19th, 2020, I essentially embarked on pretty much coming together with the idea Unchained, Inc.

And so in the beginning, Unchained Inc. was simply a Instagram page that provided career resources to a community of students. I grew the, the Instagram page to about 600 followers. From there I realized, okay, you know, [00:17:00] how do I practically turn this idea I had of this platform that connects students to opportunities? And so I put out a tweet. I was like, hey, working on this real cool project. If you're a marketing student, a computer science student that's interested, let me know. About two weeks passed by somebody finally responded and his name is Nasir Jones, who's now my CTO. and so I pitched the idea to him. He instantly fell in love with the idea as well. So it honestly became like a joint partnership at that point.

We launched the official, first version of the web platform around August 2020. And from there we were able to transfer those 600 followers that were on Instagram to our first 600 users on the web platform. It brings values to companies because companies aren't used to talking to, you know, that many students on a virtual event, let alone in person interactions. And so from there, we used the data from that first proof of concept to then in 2021 start generating early revenue by, you know, doing custom services for clients based on, you know, what we were figuring out. We were good at. [00:18:00] And so from that point on, like it was, it was a no-brainer. I ended up declining a full-time from Goldman Sachs, a year outta school. Pretty much dedicated to just building this out, building out the MVP.

[00:18:14] Andrea: This is such a cool story. This team found each other through Twitter and I really respect this passion and determination to go all in. I must say, the idea of declining a cushy job offer to start my own thing would be scary. But Unchained Inc. seems to be gaining the right kind of traction. I wonder how they’re preparing for their pitch. Especially because I imagine that this particular product might have to lean harder into explaining what makes them different and needed.

[00:18:44] Bilal: I also have a meeting with my Mentor Vic on Friday to make some last-minute adjustments to my deck. The last time me and him met I was able to make some adjustments and I submitted it for the final submission. He was impressed with it. So now it's just touching up the actual pitch itself. [00:19:00] If I could describe how I feel, I'd say anxious I'm very excited to, you know, go through this journey and excited to, to find out what I learned from it all honestly. And one of the main, one of the main things that, like I say, that kind of has been heavy on my mind about the competition itself is just like the opportunity to, you know, get that exposure in general. You know, if anything else, you know, this competition is gonna allow my team. Our product, our business to get exposure to those who may benefit from it. And so that's one of the things that's keeping me drive about the whole competition itself is the opportunity to bring exposure to the work that we're doing.

[00:19:40] Andrea: And if Unchained Inc. wins the money...

[00:19:44] Bilal: This year is all about scaling what we learned the past, uh, three years and going to market, you know, real strong this time because we grew organically through Gorilla Marketing and just our style, but this year we want to gain the funding to pair it with actual, you know, official marketing budgets, high scale, marketing campaigns, and continue to just grow the brand.

[00:20:00] Andrea: Sooo, what are your thoughts on Unchained Inc.?

[00:20:05] Mitch: I'm really excited about the problem that they're solving. There's a pressing need to get more people of color or underrepresented peoples into these larger companies, and the fact that they're building a, a supply chain or a pool of great candidates who are underrepresented, it just, it speaks to my heart. I also think that they're strong founder problem fit, so, both the founders or all of them seem very uniquely positioned to solve these problems and they're very passionate about it, and I think that that will take you very far in the startup community. Lastly, I love that they are getting advice from mentors to think about how to show up better in these competitions. Again, as I've mentioned, our rice business plan competition coach was, there's no words to even describe how helpful she was to us in navigating this process. So I think that mentor is going to be key.

[00:21:00] Andrea: And it seems like he already has a plan for what’s next. Whether they win or lose the competition they want to focus on marketing. Do you think that's a good idea?

[00:21:05] Mitch: That's a big nexus. So if they win money versus if they don't, so if they win money because they're further along, I think they need to evaluate their team. Right. What skill sets are they lacking? Marketing can be a part of the of their big budget. But I, I think marketing is just an area where you can waste a lot of money. So I think it's very important that you be clear about who you're talking to and how you wanna talk to people. And then I think your marketing dollars can be better well spent versus like they are working on their AI or their technology stack. So I think it just depends based on where they see a need on their team structure. If they don't win any money. I think there's still a lot of lessons to be gained because every round you get such intensive, critical feedback about your business and business model, and so I would be excited [00:22:00] to hear even if they don't win money, what are some of the lessons learned that they got? Cuz they may learn things about presentation and communicating and about target market or even about their abilities to scale. I think Rice is a competition regardless of whether you win or not, you definitely walk away with something.

[00:22:17] Andrea: I totally agree, being able to participate in the Rice Business Plan Competition already puts you ahead in terms of connections, and meeting advisors and investors. But winning some money is of course everyone's goal, so let's hear what Pilar, one of the judges at RBPC, looks for when they listen to these pitches.

[00:22:38] Pilar: My name is Pilar Johnson and I'm co-founder and managing partner of Debut Capital. I think because my background is as a operator first and I focus on early stages, there's a couple areas that I am always looking to see, you know, what the founders Strategy is. [00:23:00] So one is business strategy. Do they understand the market? do they have a differentiator that's gonna help them succeed in the market? And do they have short. And long-term goals basically, do they have a strong roadmap? Is this a problem, you know, that they're solving for? Is it unique to them? Have they personally experienced that problem that they're trying to solve for with the product or service? I would say one pitfall that competitors can often fall into is not having any information on the financials of it. So I think sometimes founders can focus a lot on like the marketing, which is important, or the founding team, which is also important, but you definitely wanna have at least one slide covering, even if it's high level projections for the product.

[00:24:00] Andrea: Ok so hearing this from Pilar. Mitch, do you think Unchained and Outmore living are on the right track?

[00:24:05] Mitch: Maybe because they're both really focused on sales, and so marketing really helps with capturing sales, but that's a different focus. The venture capitalists who are worried about long-term impact or long-term growth, so they're not thinking, oh, is this gonna be the hottest trend? They're thinking like, is this a company that can defend itself and grow into like a billion-dollar company?

[00:24:33] Andrea: So, based on that, I think that investibility from venture capital is going to be different from what Outmore Living and Unchained Inc. are expecting to find. And this doesn't mean that they're bad companies, it's just not what those judges are looking for.

[00:24:50] Mitch: Yeah, and I see that a lot in product-based businesses. They don't necessarily do well in venture capital because they're really focused on marketing and fads and trends. As opposed to like science [00:25:00] or like moats or patents. And so with Outmore living, wanting to do furniture. I'm not sure what patents they filed as much as like, the furniture looks cool and it's easy to transport or assemble, which is not the same thing as like, say, an investor who wants to invest in like a SaaS product.

[00:25:22] Andrea: We’ll just have to wait and see how they do in the competition and how their product resonates with judges. On our next episode, we'll be looking at our other two teams: DIA and Active Surfaces.

[00:25:32] Mitch: Yes, so excited to learn about Unchained and Outmore living and to see how they do in this competition, and also even more excited to learn about our next two competitors.

[00:25:42] Andrea: And of course, you know we can’t leave without some valuable takeaways.

• Andrea: One. When building a business plan, especially thinking about it from the investor’s perspective, it’s important to think about: if and how you understand the market.
• Mitch: Like, do you have a differentiator? How do you stand out?
• [00:26:00] Andrea: And then what’s going to help you succeed? Is your roadmap of short- and long-term goals setting you up for sustainable growth?
• Mitch: Two. Speaking of sustainable growth, how do you build on your initial product like Outmore Living? How do you show investors that you have a plan that gets you to the next step? What will that look like when it comes to your go-to-market strategy? And how will this be unique to, in comparison to other brands?
• Andrea: Three. Prioritization. I think that many business owners don’t talk about how sometimes, the business part of it all is just not always top of mind.
• Mitch: And I don't even understand how it could be, and maybe it means it doesn't have to be.
• Andrea: Burnout is real.
• Mitch: Mm. And it's important to take time to yourself or with your family like Alex is doing with his brand-new baby.
• Mitch: Four. Feedback and staying in a marketing budget. Feedback, as we learned, was very critical at this competition. So all of our founders are gonna have to be intentional about taking that one day turnaround time, reading everything and making sure they have still the key points that they can implement and run with. [00:27:00]
• Andrea: And then they also have to think about if they were to win, how would they use that money? How are they going to protect their business so that it grows for the next 10 years?

[00:27:14] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your idea to some investors! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site [00:28:00] at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez -

[00:28:13] Mitch: and I'm your co-host, Mitch Gilbert.

[00:28:15] Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:28:22]