Today is Wednesday, which means tonight is Xpo Wednesday at the CoLab, which means last Wednesday was XpoPitchNight, which means this post is a week late. Sorry.
Since this is somewhat less than timely, I’ll keep it brief, as you are unlikely to care any longer. Here’s the gist:
The event was less pitch-y than anticipated (by me). That is, if by “pitch-y” you mean entrepreneurs offering ideas in search of funding, and I do, so that is how we will be defining the term. And there just wasn’t much pitch-y-ness on display.
One gentleman stood athwart the stage and offered 4 business ideas he wasn’t interested in working on.
Another fellow dispassionately proposed a bike sharing idea.
…and that was it! At least from a pitch-y perspective.
There were other ideas, but they weren’t about tech start-up, billion-dollar-business kind of stuff. For instance, one dude pitched the idea of building a viewing deck/platform off the side of the Wasena Bridge. Why? No idea. It was kind of cool, though.
In summation, the event was not what I had anticipated or hoped for, but it was sort of fun anyway. Goes to show you, Ms. Jackson, that you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather. Or more precisely, you can plan a pretty pitch night, but you can’t predict the pitch-y-ness.
There is another XpoPitchNight in the works for June. I’m fairly certain it will be fun, and I hope it will be pitch-y. I can assure you of this: the event was clearly enough of a success that time slots WILL fill up, so if you are a start-up looking for funding (it is possible!) or just looking to polish your knob pitch in front of a friendly crowd, contact Ariel at the CoLab post haste!
Grandin Republic 