Pitch Day

In my entrepreneurship class, pitch day finally arrived. We had been looking forward to this for the entire year. This was our chance to get funding for our company. The pressure was on.

Olivier and I had been practicing our pitch for weeks. He had his speech down pact and I had perfected our slides. Going in, we felt pretty confident; we soon came to realize, however, that the investors are harsh judges.

Our three investors were local businessmen and entrepreneurs themselves. I do want to point out the fact that these were all men, which was a disappointment to me, but something I have sadly become accustomed to in male dominated fields.

We were the first to pitch. After giving a great presentation, the questions began. While Olivier answered them to the best of his ability (and quite well in my opinion), but we could only do the best we could.

The other teams pitched their own companies and the investors made various remarks. Finally, it was time for the judges to make a decision. It was a thirty minute wait for results. We waited with anticipation...

We lost.

At first, I was upset. I am not going to lie, I really wanted that funding and thought we had worked hard (and frankly deserved it). However I now realize writing this I am not entitled to anything. While hard work does reap rewards, it is not always in the way that you would expect. While we walk away today congratulating another team, that does not mean we lost. It simply means we live to fight another day.

-Kylie