I am not very good at pitching. In the end, I am a tech guy and a product person who likes to see a creation come to life and put a smile on our customer’s face. Yet, from time to time, I have to get in front of a crowd and tell them about Swapit. Our vision, our approach and our strategy to move forward. I don’t mind that much any more to speaking publicly. It was much harder about 10 months ago when I had my first public appearances for Swapit.
Last week I got invited to talk about Swapit to the Harvard Business School Alumni at our friendly co-working space CoCoon.
It was a very intimate setting with a quite interesting audience of 30 HBS alumni. Obviously, they all have strong business background and therefore, it was great to get their feedback on our platform and the way we approach our business.
From the event, I have not gotten any direct / promising leads in terms of partnerships or investors out of. However, getting feedback from folks with a very business-savvy and numbers orientated point of view, is invaluable. This is quite similar to the many discussions I have with actual potential investors or business partners. There might not be a direct benefit associated to that time and effort spent on these meetings and pitches, but indirectly it helps a lot when you get back to work the next morning and you realize you have to narrow your focus even more.
While, we are building Swapit to solve a very particular problem in densely populated places like Hong Kong, we need to make absolutely sure, that Swapit moves towards market domination, revenue generation and profitability. At all times, though, we need to make sure we are bringing people together in the most efficient and most enjoyable way. Every time we put a smile on the face of one of our customers, we created a moment of success. It’s not monetary success, it’s a success that shows appreciation and joy. If you’re looking at the top 10 global consumer brands, that’s exactly what they are creating every single day. And, that is what ensures they remain such large well-known brands, which everyone loves. By making people happy that use your product, you are set for success in all means possible.
Right, I also like to give stuff away for free.
Swapit Blog 