On crashing and burning at a Y Combinator event, and creating a Minimum Viable Pitch

Vincent Ha, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Gushcloud, shares his not-so-smooth-sailing experience at SXSW 2012. Republished with permission from the company’s blog.

The sun was beating down on me. The Austin weather at SXSW is simultaneously cold and scorching. Some words come out of my mouth, but I’m not sure what I had just said. Whatever I said, it seems to have gotten a negative reaction.

‘Don’t give me another one of those we’re X for Y type of pitches. Talk to me like I’m an normal person!’

He was referring to my first elevator pitch attempt, “Gushcloud is like Task Rabbit for social media marketing.” But when I tried it at the last event, it seemed to work well!

Quick, think fast.

I brush it off and try again to illustrate what Gushcloud is with a relevant example (read our feature on Gushcloud).

“Sure, so what business do you do?”

“I build live chat software for businesses.”

Crap! B2B business! Can I cram it into the B2C example that I’ve been using all along? I’m starting to feel uncomfortable. I have a beer in hand and I take a swig.

“Look he’s sweating already!” Laughter all around. The man and his posse are watching me, the helpless guy trying to explain what his startup does. I stubbornly try anyway to fit a square peg in a round hole with my rehearsed example.

“Let’s say you want consumers to know about your live chat software for business. Using Gushcloud, you can create a task in a matter of minutes….” As I’m speaking, I start realizing how silly the example sounds. Why would ordinary people want to find out about live chat software when its targeted at businesses? I realize my final attempt is doomed to failure.

He interrupts me.

“Listen pal, why don’t you try your pitch again via email.” *hands me business card* His posse isn’t laughing anymore – they feel embarrassed for me…. (to be continued)