3 builders who never spoke to each other

Enter the contest for the press and the introductions

Three founders entered programmes and competitions and valued everything except the prize. One got pitch coaching, substantial coverage and a grant covering infrastructure while reaching the world quarterfinals alone at seventeen; another won a category with a city institution behind it and took twenty thousand dollars plus the investor introductions that kept the company alive. Acceptance to a well known programme also pulls investor interest wildly out of proportion to your revenue.

The method

1. 01

   Enter a startup competition for what surrounds it: pitch coaching, press attention and a grant, not the prize.

2. 02

   The exception is a competition with a category you fit precisely and a local institution behind it, which can hand you both money and introductions.

3. 03

   Announcing acceptance to a well known programme generates inbound investor interest out of proportion to your revenue.

What it returned

• 17

  Two months of preparation for the Microsoft Imagine Cup taught the founder pitching, design and press handling, brought substantial coverage, and came with a grant covering infrastructure costs. He reached the world quarterfinals as a solo 17 year old among 52 teams.

• $20,000

  Winning the cleantech category of the NYC Big Apps contest brought $20,000 plus introductions to investors through the city's Economic Development Commission, without which the author says the company would probably have died there

• Raised on better terms than companies he had worked inside with a thousand times the revenue.

Sources

• Reflections on my time in Y CombinatorChris Frantz · chrisfrantz.com · 2022-08-22
• Closing SolarList: a cleantech post-mortem - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · First money in · 2014-11-14
• Shut Down +600 Users Startup due to Hurricane MariaSergio Mattei Diaz · failory.com · Which were your biggest mistakes and challenges you had to overcome? · undated