Startup insights from a successful participant on the 2016 Startup Grind program

By @SimonCocking. Interesting insights from Pavel Astak about the 2016 Startup Grind program. Pavel was in one of the participating startups, AppAll who we recently featured in Business Showcase.

Why do you think you were selected?

I believe AppAll was selected for Startup Grind 2016 because it is a new technology that doesn’t currently exist on the market, and it solves a problem that so many people face: running out of device storage space. When we explain what AppAll is, we often get the response that AppAll seems like such an obvious idea, and people wonder why it doesn’t already exist. It is so simple, and solving such a trivial problem, but the technology is completely new, and so people get really excited about it.

What tips would you give to others for how to make a good pitch?

Be confident and explain everything as simply as you can. Try to sound as natural as possible, not like you are reciting a text. Try to get a 10-year-old to understand what you are saying to ensure you are getting your thoughts across, and really get people excited by showing your enthusiasm. Draw the audience in. Practicing in front of a mirror multiple times will help you be confident when pitching in front of an audience. And, of course, content also matters. Make sure you know your audience and what they want to hear about your idea. If you are pitching to potential customers, then they don’t care much about how the back-end of your product works, you just need to explain what it is and why they need it.

How did it help you / what did you learn?

Pitching at Startup Grind helped our team learn what people liked about our product and how we can improve it. It also gave us practice pitching our idea in front of a live audience. Overall we learned that people were very enthusiastic about our idea and are looking forward to the release of our iOS version.

What were the mentors like / what did they do well?

We met with Startup Grind mentors the day before the conference to go over our pitches and practice answering questions for Angel Investors and VCs. The mentors gave feedback about pitches and helped companies focus in on the really important information about their company. They organized meetings for the companies with Angel Investors on the conference day, which was a nice perk of the program, because we got matched with Angels/VCs that were specifically interested in our product/technology.

Anything you would have done differently?

There is not really anything that we would have done differently at the conference, except maybe wear more comfortable shoes haha! It was a long day.

Where are you now? and what are the plans for the future?

Currently we are talking with interested investors and accelerator programs, while we continue to improve current services for our Android version and develop our iOS and Windows versions. We are also starting to market our product for enterprise, after getting useful feedback from investors and mentors that we met through Startup Grind.

Your tips for success / how to increase chances of succeeding?

Don’t give up. Always keep the big picture in your mind and don’t let the issues that you will face daily or weekly discourage you from moving forward.

Startup Business Showcase : AppAll Mobile

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If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.net or on Twitter: @SimonCocking