P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge Final Pitch at CES 2022

We had the pleasure of speaking with CEO and Co-Founder of Clubhouse, Paul Davison today as he welcomed the four finalists to the Procter & Gamble Ventures Studio Innovation Pitch Challenge! 

Sharing his top pointers to perfect your pitch– something he has quite a bit of experience in– Paul noted the importance of authenticity and naturalness to connect with potential investors. 

Davison spoke to the power in approaching your pitch in a way that genuinely reflects you and your brand’s values. Be honest with your listeners that you might not have all the answers right then and ask potential investors their opinions and how they could help you succeed. 

Rather than rushing to squeeze in every detail, which could make your pitch lengthy and confusing, Paul says,

keeping it short and punchy is always good!

The best pitches always feel like conversations with a friend, Paul said from experience on both sides of the table. Embrace the opportunity to share your passion with others, and be open to what they can offer you! 

The Pitch Challenge was exciting and showcased creativity and ingenuity– it’s safe to say that the judges did not have an easy decision to make. Sharing innovations in the fields of active aging, women’s health, food preservation, and cutting-edge skincare, the finalists presented four groundbreaking products driven by passion, curiosity, and a lot of science! 

After four captivating pitches, the judges left to deliberate, allowing time for finalists, moderators, and audience members to speak and ask questions. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the finalists’ backgrounds and how they got to this stage. Finally the judges returned to share the winner of the $10,000 prize and opportunity to grow with P&G. 

And the winner is… Cindy Santa Cruz of The Lady Patch! Her product has improved the lives of women and has been integral to removing the stigma of the common problem of female incontinence. 

That’s not all! The other finalists won’t be going home empty handed. Guy Persaud, President of New Business Procter & Gamble, said the judges had such a difficult time choosing just one winner, they decided to send all three runners-up home with a $5,000 check for their startups! 

Startup Club is so glad to have been included in this revolutionary event and learn from so many imaginative entrepreneurs.  If you missed the session, listen to the replay above where you can listen to the full pitch of each finalist and the feedback from the judges!

  • Read the Transcript for P&G Ventures Studios Pitch Event

    Pitch Event CES 2022

    [00:00:00] we are starting the countdown to the big pitch, and I think this is a first time for PNG because they’re actually, um, streaming the pitch live through clubhouse.

    And today we have sort of a backstage pass to this event because we have the pre events and we also have the post events that we’re gonna talk about with some of the contestants and the judges. And we’re going to see who is the better pitch here. Um, welcome everyone. We are live from CES or at least we were supposed to be live from CES.

    Um, now we’re actually live from start-up club on clubhouse. Um, and you can feel the, the tension building here. Michelle, what are your few thoughts before we just kick it off here? As people join in, we get this started. You can [00:01:00] feel the tension in the room, even though we’re not there, the virtual room, uh, we do have the ability to see some people through Microsoft teams at P and G.

    So, you know, everyone’s scrambling around and it’s, it’s awfully exciting. Oh my gosh. I mean, I feel nervous and I’m not even in this competition. Like, you know, of course we’ve been, you know, working with P and G over the last couple months on this event, which as caused said, was supposed to be live at CES, but we all know it happened.

    Um, for us, we’re just thrilled that we’re able to do it through clubhouse. So I’m just so impressed with the finalists that they’ve chosen. And I think you will be too. So I hope that everyone’s able to stay. Um, when we kick off the actual competition, it will be a stream directly through the icon right below us here that says PG E venture.

    So [00:02:00] can we, I have to go on mute right now. All right. All right. Sounds good. You know, a lot of the people who are talking today on stage are in clubhouse for the first time. So, or, uh, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit of, uh, a little bit of learning to really learn the. I want to talk just a little bit about the show that we had yesterday.

    It’s on the replay. If you actually get a chance, check out the replay on start-up club on the app. And yesterday we talked about raising money with guy, um, Prisaad, who’s the president of new ventures for Proctor and gamble. And we were actually able to, um, really connect with Kim and Sarah Anderson as well.

    And, and we really learned a lot about raising money, but we learned the boat, their business model. Is there a business models, really all about helping inventors, helping get products to market. And it’s pretty exciting to see that a [00:03:00] globe, you know, a fortune 100 company can, um, do that kind of innovation in the larger group.

    I know Paul Davidson, I see just arrived. Can somebody bring him up on stage? That would be, I know it is his app, but I think we still have to bring him on stage. Rachel, if you could do that, Hey, Paul people always think that I have super powers that let me pack anyone stage, but I assure you that is not the case.

    Of course you do. Of course, of course. Well, let me kick it off here. I, you know, I had the opportunity over the last month to really get to know the team at P and G ventures. Let me tell you this, that they have something very special. They connect with inventors of consumable products that are not only there are only good for you, but they’re also good for the environments today.

    We have four finalists we’re going to hear from in 60 minutes and a, you missed this earlier, Paul, but we said we were originally supposed to be live from CES, but no, no. I heard [00:04:00] about the clubhouse live from club, which is awesome. Well, I’m so glad that this one at this part of it can still go on. Yeah.

    And, uh, I just want to recognize you, Paul first really supporting creators inventors entrepreneurs. I know at startup club here, we have drones almost 760,000 members on your platform. We’re very excited about that. And we know you’re in a startup mode and you’re in a pitch mode as well, but guy, can you just sort of kick us off, tell us what we’re going to see today.

    What is the P and G venture challenge and what the kind of companies that applied for that? Awesome. Hey Colin, thanks a bunch. And Paul, uh, just delighted to be here super inspired by what you created. I actually joined clubhouse a couple of years ago, not, uh, with P and G, um, but on a personal front, because my sister, Angela is an artist in LA and she said, oh God, you got to join this.

    You would love it. So [00:05:00] yeah, I saw your August, 2020. That’s all. You got moved through a pretty deep locked down in Panama city, Panama, Latin America. Um, it’s Hey, we’re super excited. So what’s going on is we, um, we have opened up a challenge to entrepreneurs, startups across America to basically share, um, and submit any and all ideas they have in the consumer goods space.

    We identified a number of areas that we’re interested in, um, for example, active aging. So, um, as men and women age, and they want to thrive, um, as they age and not try to fix problems, but really have the same level of vitality and dynamism and energy, uh, that they did when they were younger chronologically.

    Um, and we have a couple of finalists. We have four finalists today, and we have a couple of finals that have products specifically designed to help. And in both of these cases, they’re actually helping women, whether [00:06:00] going through menopause or going through, uh, bladder leakage issues, really important, critical problems, which sometimes we don’t talk about openly, but, um, there’s a tremendous opportunity for innovation.

    So two of the submissions are in those areas. Um, we also have other spaces like helping food waste, uh, water scarcity. We have one awesome submission, uh, for food waste management, which is a huge issue right now in our country. Um, so that’s a third one. And then also skin conditions. So many consumers have skin conditions that they can’t really identify or understand.

    Uh, and we have a wonderful submission that made the finalist round on, um, Tufts skin conditions where some consumers do not want to use, uh, steroids or cortisone or our Medicaid solutions. Um, they want something more natural. And one of the phenomenons of a lot of the candidates this year was no trade-offs.

    So helping consumers have natural safe products, which are still efficacious. So those are the finalists, the challenge itself, we [00:07:00] open it up because what we’re trying to do is create a best of both worlds model. So marry the infrastructure resources, uh, capital go to market manufacturing of Procter and gamble with the ingenuity, agility, and creativity of founders who are specifically have passion projects that they’re trying to solve for and may need help support or partnership to really make it as big and exciting as they want.

    So that’s the nature. We had the record number of submissions this year, highest ever from minority and female founders. So we’re super excited. That’s amazing. Thanks guy for giving us that little overview. That’s amazing. And I know I’m really looking forward to this up. It sounds like the sound is about to be here.

    Hold on. We had a quick question for you. Talk a little hair, [00:08:00] hope you don’t mind. Um, obviously you’re, you’re a master at pitching and you funded this wonderful app that we’re all able to use. We’d love to hear from you. Just what, what is it like to pitch to VCs? What does it feel like? And what advice might you give us here on the stage and in the room today?

    Oh, man, I think that the, um, the best, the best pitches just feel like conversations, right? Where you, uh, I mean, a lot of times if the people here that you’re talking to they’re, I mean, they’re really smart, right? They’ve seen thousands of these things before. And so I think the advice I give people is the you’ve got to hold the story.

    Story matters a lot in every part of startups, right. It being able to tell, to tell your story matters for fundraising, but for recruiting and for comms and, and, and all sorts of things. Right. Sales, and, and [00:09:00] so I think you’ve got to really, you’ve got to hone the narrative. Um, I, I think being your own harshest critic and never trying to sugar coat things and, and really just, you know, if you don’t know the answer, say, yeah, that’s, uh, you know, we don’t know the answer to that yet.

    Here’s how we’re thinking about it, but we could be wrong. And, um, being not trying to sound salesy, I think goes through. Far and giving you credibility. And, um, the other thing I’d say is try and let, like, ideally you’re engaging the person that you’re talking to in a conversation you’re, you’re throwing out questions that make them think that you’re asking them their opinions on it.

    You’re going into the hard questions together. And through that dialogue, they will come to respect you and understand that, you know, what you’re talking about and if they have fun with it and they really enjoy the conversation, it’s going to make them want to engage more. Um, and, uh, the last thing I’d say is keep it short, which isn’t always my strength because I talk a [00:10:00] lot, but like, uh, keeping it short and punchy is always good.

    I like how you talk about the authentic part of it. I, you know, one thing I’ve learned from coming on to clubhouse and talking is really be authentic. And so you’re saying to bring that into your pitch as well, to really try to be yourself, not try to mask yourself and be someone else. Yeah, I think that’s true.

    And you know, one thing that Rowan, I wrote, I been building products for a long time. And when we did our seed round for clubhouse, we, um, you know, we sort of said, well, let’s give ourselves 18 to 24 months. We should we, you know, if we can’t figure out something by then we should probably go get jobs.

    Let’s keep the team just to the two of us and keep it really lean because that’ll just allow us to go faster. Let’s raise a small amount of money from people we really like working with. And we know well that, you know, the type of people that you’ve built relationships over with over the years, you just kind of say, whatever you do, I want to invest in.

    And we told them, okay, we’re going to raise a little bit of money. You’re investing in real hunt, Paul. We [00:11:00] don’t know what we’re going to build. Here’s some ideas that we think are interesting, but they’ll probably change and you’ll probably lose your money. And if you built good relationships with people over the years, they say, yep, sounds good.

    And that’s kind of the way it started. Hi, may I ask Paul a question,

    Paul, I’d love to pick your brain on this, which is how do you view? So for example, companies like Proctor and gamble. So sometimes I feel like we have a lot to learn on how to work with entrepreneurs and startups and create an environment where, um, it’s really a win-win and a partnership, and we’re, we have huge intention, but you know, we’re trying to improve every day.

    What would you say is some advice for us on how we can, you know, what are the pitfalls or what are the things that you think we can do better? When we are trying to engage with dramatically smaller companies who are startups, who are really trying to get started and, and need support and help, then I think the model that you described makes a ton of sense, right?

    I mean, when, when you look at a lot of [00:12:00] companies that might fit into that, the P and T ecosystem. You bring everything you bring so many of the hard parts, right. Brand obviously matters a ton. Building a product. People love matters a ton, but distribution and, um, all of the knowledge around the industry and, and supply chain and packaging and branding like boy, that’s, that’s hugely helpful to them.

    So I, I, um, you know, I’m not sure I can say what you should be doing better because I haven’t been intimately involved in, in the process. But I think at a high level, it makes a ton of sense that the questions that the entrepreneurs will probably have are okay, anytime you have some sort of strategic investment, I don’t know if you’d call it that exactly.

    But, you know, um, taking funding from someone that could be a, an acquire or a competitor, you’re thinking, well, there are all of these advantages. There, there is a natural path to MNA if I wanted to go down there, but it could crowd out opportunities with other potential [00:13:00] acquirers there, you know, there could be issues like that.

    That might be top of mind for them. So I think just having upfront ways to address that when you’re describing the program to them to ease any concerns they might have, and to get them excited about all the upsides would go a long way. Thanks, Paul really clear. And they got a thing that I really liked that you said Paul, and we heard a bit of this yesterday with Sarah, from venture fund and got.

    And our session yesterday here on clubhouse was the, really the concept about you’re investing in the team. And you really drove that home, Paul. And what you said that that was, what did that you actually raised money? It was about the team. So, you know, I think that’s really something important for folks to remember as they set out to do funding and think about what entrepreneur, what startup venture they’re actually going for.

    Another thing that makes that easier is, [00:14:00] um, you know, Rowan and I throughout the club has its history. We’ve, we’ve always tried to, I, this might sound silly because, you know, we’ve raised a lot of capital at this point, but we’ve always tried to raise as little money as we needed at each stage. Um, because the, you know, the like in the very early days when it was just a prototype, we were fortunate in that we started to get some interest from investors to do our next round.

    And we just sort of said, well, um, you know, that’s, that’s great. That’s, you know, that’s really exciting, but if it continues to work, then we’ll continue to have the opportunity to raise money. If we get new data that makes us think it’s not going to work, then we don’t want to have a bunch of someone’s money.

    And we’re not currently capital constraint because we’ve kept the team small. So let’s just stay heads down and keep building and focus on the community and the product. And that allowed us to make a lot of, um, what I think are the right decisions along the way. And, and, you know, you have to have that mindset and keep the team small.

    And, and I think if you do that, it just gives you a bit more flexibility than if you’re trying to, um, [00:15:00] you know, take on a ton of capital and, and like, uh, really overbuild for lack of a better term early on. Well, Paul, the show must go on. I know the audience and listen, I appreciate your having me up here and I’m so excited for this.

    Don’t want to kick you out of the room, but the show on with the show. Thanks everyone. Let’s just do a quick reminder of what to expect today. Um, so we will be streaming. You see where it says P and G venture up here. So as Michelle, that is actually going to be a live audio stream of the actual pitch Fest.

    So we encourage you to stay in the, um, in this room while we stream live in the middle, while the judges go to deliberate for the winter, we’ll do a little Q and a session. So stay tuned for that. Then afterwards, we’re going to do [00:16:00] something really cool. We’re going to do an after show. So think of it like an after party, where the judges and contestants and folks like guy from P and G will come on the stage and we’ll talk about the highlights and what they learned, what they might’ve done differently after the pitch.

    So please stay tuned for the whole show and, um, we’re ready to go live to the audio right now. I’m just going to give her friends a heads up that we’re ready. And I think we get, we can get going call in any last notes. Like I’m still nervous tension guy. It’s like, it’s crazy, but you got us on, on the edge here.

    And if you want these alerts and like we said, there’s a number of shows throughout the week. Be sure to go to start-up dot club and join our email list as well as, um, just check the site. You can check the calendar. First a little [00:17:00] bit about pain. It’s where our serial entrepreneurs live is the early stage startups studio inside P and G, which partners with startups, entrepreneurs, and inventors to create and build new brands and categories where P and G does not serve our consumers.

    Today. You can learn more about P and G ventures at PG ventures studio. That’s all one word, PG ventures, studio.com. So this is the fourth year that we’re hosting the innovation challenge in tandem with CES, the consumer electronic show, and P and G is participating in CES virtually this year as we did in 2021.

    And we’re hosting the challenge virtually as well. So we’re not all in Eureka park, but we’re still super excited that you’re here and to talk about today’s innovation challenge, because boy, do we have some wonderful finalists for you to see? And if you are [00:18:00] joining us during CES, I encourage you to visit our virtualBooth@pglifelab.com, where you can explore our latest innovations from Gillette oral B and our newly launched beauty sphere.

    So last fall, we put out a call to entrepreneurs and startups to submit their consumer product innovation in areas such as active aging, healthy skin. Food waste reduction and nontoxic home and garden. The result was our largest ever number of entries and highest percentage of female founders and founders of color.

    If that’s not awesome. And after evaluating all the submissions against a number of criteria, four finalists were selected and you’ll meet them all here. Shortly. Each of the finalists will have 10 minutes to pitch their innovation and our panel of his deemed judges who you’ll also meet here in a minute.

    We’ll [00:19:00] have five minutes to ask questions, following all the pitches. The judges will have about 10 minutes to deliberate, and the winner will be announced. Our winner gets a cash prize of $10,000 and the opportunity to work with P and G ventures to continue Dell developing their innovation and exciting today.

    After the presentations, please join us on clubhouse where the startup club will host an exclusive conversation with all four of our final. All right, so let’s get started and first introduce you to our wonderful panel of expert judges. All right. So I think they’re going to pop up here for us all to see there they are.

    So I’m going to start with some colleagues of mine. Um, I’m going to start with guy perso, who is the president of the new business for Proctor and gamble and responsible for ventures? Hello guy, how are you? Are you doing [00:20:00] I’m super excited. I know we’re doing this virtually, but hopefully that gives more people, a chance to listen in and join in that might not otherwise have the chance in Vegas.

    So agree guy. And I’m loving the scarf. It’s apropos for the weather around here today onto Victor Aguilar. Who’s our chief R and D and innovation officer for P and G. Hi Victor. How are you, sir? Great to be with all of you today. Great to have you Victor innovation as your calling card. All right. Onto our, like really special, uh, judges, Syeda, meaty, who is founder of plug and play tech center, a global innovation platform that connects blue chip companies with the brightest startups from across the globe site.

    Nice to meet you. It’s great meeting you. And it’s a great pleasure to be here. The PNG team, and I’m looking forward. To getting to know the [00:21:00] four fantastic startups. Awesome. Well, we’re really thrilled to have you with us. So again, thank you for your time. All right. Next to Sarah Anderson, the founding partner of vault fund, a fund of funds focused on leading venture studios and company builders.

    Sarah, welcome. Glad to have you with us. Hi, thanks for having me. And thanks for hosting. I also am very excited about the four finalists. It’s going to be a really fun and entertaining competition and I think hard, hard choice to be made, but welcome. And finally, also to Lee Henderson, who was Ernst and young America’s private leader and executive sponsor of entrepreneur access network, where he serves as a fervent supporter of young entrepreneurs and as a connector across the inter entrepreneurial ecosystem, Lee, welcome to you to thanks, Phil.

    Great to see you and glad to be here with everyone. And also just I’m super excited [00:22:00] to be here and experience these wonderful. Super. Thank you, Lee. All right. So, um, we’re going to go ahead and turn our attention to our exciting innovation finalists. And our first to go today is Kimba Williams, a co-founder and CEO of crochet naturals, an all natural pH bounced doctor formulated feminine hygiene product line made by women for women Kimba.

    Welcome and over to you. Thank you, Phil. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for having me, ladies and gentlemen, take a look at the image on this slide. If this image is shocking to you, wait until you hear about the statistic behind it. According to breast cancer.org, one in every eight women will be not, might be, but will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.[00:23:00] 

    One of those such women was my co-founder Dr. Barbara McLaren, a board certified OB GYN, who at the age of 38 was diagnosed with breast cancer after undergoing a double mastectomy to save her own life. She discovered toxins in her breast tissue that were specifically related to the personal care and feminine hygiene products that she used every single day.

    Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Kimberly Williams and I’m the CEO and co-founder of Kusha. After 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry, I was passionate about joining forces with Dr. Barb to create the first and only doctor developed nontoxic feminine health and hygiene essentials line. For more than just periods.

    Let’s get into it. Now, why more than periods? Well, you know why anytime people talk about feminine health and feminine hygiene, what do you think about tampons pads and periods? Well, I’m here to tell you that feminine health and hygiene is actually more than just that. [00:24:00] In fact, every day, millions of women everywhere are struggling with what we call the secret side of feminine hygiene.

    Ladies. It’s the cleansers that don’t dry you out or irritate you down there. It’s worrying about sweaty odors because you want to lead an active lifestyle. It’s new moms discovering challenges that they never knew they would have, and so much more, but because these topics are so taboo, women are too shy to talk about them.

    And they typically sort of creep by retail store Isles, just looking for lotions and potions in the form of solutions. At best. These solutions are ineffective and at worse they’re actually dangerous and could be detrimental to their lives. As a fact, according to 2017 Harvard medical research paper, 95% of feminine care products found on store shelves today contain dangerous toxins and carcinogens that are specifically linked to infertility ovarian cancer and similar to what probably happened to Dr.

    Barb [00:25:00] breast cancer. So exactly how are women supposed to find every day feminine health and hygiene products that are safe, gentle, and effective? Well, the answer ladies and gentlemen is now Kusha created by an OB GYN. Kusha is the first full suite of non-toxic natural, feminine health essentials for every woman, from menstruation to menopause, we are serving and creating solutions to women that manage their life cycle and not just their monthly one.

    Now, before we go into it, I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page, feminine health and hygiene is a large opportunity with a $53 billion total addressable market. And what’s even more shocking is the fact that the menopausal market alone is a whopping $600 billion opportunity. Hope I have your attention now.

    Now because of such a breadth of opportunity in this particular market who Shay was very intentional about creating products that spanned across a woman’s life cycle. We’ve identified five [00:26:00] major segments in the feminine health and hygiene market, including the first and largest product segment, which is the daily health and hygiene segment.

    That particular segment features our number one product, our gentle to one filming wash. It’s an intimate wash for women to be used just in their intimate areas, oral or all over our natural deodorant spray, our post mastectomy massage bomb, and so many more in total, there were seven products there. The next segment is our BV and yeast infection segment that features our boric acid suppository for rapid, um, effectiveness for prevention and treatment of BV and yeast infection.

    Third segment is our internal vaginal dryness segment. We’ve got currently one product there, but we are working on a product that is going to be a game changer in that particular segment. Fourth segment is your best friend, the menstrual segment, featuring our newest product, the Kushi menstrual cup, and then fifth, but certainly not least is the menopausal segment [00:27:00] where we have products that manage vaginal dryness, itch and irritation for women and their menopausal state.

    Now because of the breadth of products that Kusha has 13 currently and more in R and D, we actually have a huge brand reach with 82% of our customers. Over the age of 35. We are a very inclusive brand because we serve all types of women. And we’re proud of that. Every size, shape, ethnicity, you name it.

    Most of our consumers are moms and they all enjoy and prioritize a healthy lifestyle. Now here’s a bird’s eye view of Kusha products. All of our products are reasonably priced between 15 and $30 and they all share these particular attributes being fragrance-free pH balance and main right here in the U S of a, and of course made with natural and organic ingredients.

    Now those attributes are special, but here’s why Kusha is truly unique. Instead of picking up formulations off of a shelf, we started from scratch with the [00:28:00] right experts. We started with OB GYN, natural medicine, practitioners, and chemists, and then tasked them with finding the right botanicals with we call botanicals with benefits, those botanicals that are specifically known to address the challenges that women are facing in feminine health and hygiene in particular inflammation, infection, and irritation.

    Combining those two powerful forces Wala we’ve created the right formulations that are all protected through trade secret legal protection. How do we know they’re the right formulations? Because all of Kusha products are gentle and rapidly effective, including our hero products, which you see presented here on the slide today to my far left is our gentle tomb.

    When foaming launch in the middle as our natural deodorant spray, uh, one spray a day keeps us sweaty odors away. And third is our boric acid suppository, which is again, a prevention and treatment for BV and yeast infection and has been endorsed by [00:29:00] the American college of obstetrics and gynecologists.

    Now you don’t have to take my word for it. Women love Kusha. We enjoy four and a half stars across all online channels. Out of five, and women are quoted with saying they love this product that Kusha actually restores their confidence and that the immediate results are phenomenal. Now, all that hoopla has resulted in stellar traction and validation across multiple channels for crochet, including OB GYN who sell Kusha directly to patients in office.

    It garnered us a partnership with whole foods market back in July of 2020, and amazingly many of our products are segmented into the top 10 in their own product channel categories. The proof ladies and gentlemen is really in the. Now other brands have also gained traction in this industry, but I assure you that cliche leads the pack.

    We are developed by OB GYN, one of the first and only all of our products were made with safe and [00:30:00] natural ingredients. And again, we serve women from menstruation to menopause. So now that we’ve kicked the competition to the curb, let’s talk about how Kusha goes to market and the business of getting Kushi into the hands of everyone we sell through our e-commerce channel, crochet.com.

    And then on the other side, our wholesale partners, whole foods, market, Amazon, and many other natural grocers across the country because those two channels are specifically different. We’re going to be growing the business in two different ways, but successfully we know that we have to go through aggressive e-commerce marketing.

    We have to open more doors in the U S and Canadian markets. And we’re looking forward to unique product innovation with new sustainable products. Two boots we’ll know we’re on the right track because we’ll be hitting mile markers and milestones that we’ve already identified, including more menstrual products, adding more menopausal products to the mix.

    And finally going global because we know that we’re looking to own that space below. Now the magic is not only at our products, but in our [00:31:00] team, there was me. You was truly a host of folks that make the magic happen every day and last but not least is our phenomenal physician. Co-founder Dr. Barbara McLaren board certified OB GYN for over 25 years and now an 11 year breast cancer survivor.

    She is amazing. The only partner missing is P and G in the near future. We’re looking forward to a strategic partnership with P and G where P and G could potentially lend their expertise around retail expansion, manufacturing, R and D, and potentially become fiscal partners and our future growth. And so I invite everyone today to join us and the over 60,000 women who have already purchased and fallen in love Kusha as we try to save and support women’s health one, Kusha at a time, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Kimble Williams, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Kushi.

    And essentially we are natural care for down there. Thank you so much,[00:32:00] 

    Ken, what an amazing pitch crochet is a fantastic story, how compelling, um, but, you know, I don’t matter in all this, so we need to get to our judges and, uh, we’re going to turn it over to them for a few minutes of questions. And, uh, so over to you, judges and questions for Kimbo and. Thanks Phil.

    This is Sade needy from plug-and-play. Congratulations. You know what? One of our startup, which is for men’s grooming down there just became worth a billion dollar. And I believe other than having a product that works and in the sensitive arts, their claim to fame [00:33:00] is their subscription marketing and client that pay, I believe 20 to $30 a month to subscribe today, companies, a direct e-commerce site home, much of your business model works towards subscription-based versus selling through Amazon or whole foods or even direct.

    Do you have any subscription customers that are willing to sign up for 20, $30 a month? Sure. That’s a great question. So about 85% of our business is direct to consumer. So through our e-commerce channel, who shay.com, uh, before or pre pandemic, we saw about a 25% subscription rate of those consumers. Um, we have seen that dwindle a bit, and I think it’s because most consumers are a little protective of their [00:34:00] futures and what’s going on from a subscription and money perspective.

    Um, and so we look forward to continuing our subscription-based programming. Um, but our return rate in general is over 55% even without a subscription. So we are well-poised and in a position where women love Kushi and will come back subscription or not. I hope that answers your question. Yeah. But if I had only one common as subscription is hard, but if you could sign them up for a year, you really will have a client for life, but that’s sort of my 2 cents worth.

    And I really great job, great pitch. I love the products that you come out with so far. The one thing that’s running through my head is as you think about product development for an early stage startup, you have a number of [00:35:00] products already. How have you thought about. How you’re developing new products, what cadence and how they’re synergized across the platform.

    Sure. So the fact that Dr. Barb, as we affectionately call her my co-founder, she is still very much in a full-time OB GYN practice of her own. And so we are very, very lucky to have very specific feedback from women on an everyday basis. Uh, and so Dr. Barb leads our R and D department, and we’ve identified specific challenges that are consistent themes from women over and over and over again.

    So our R and D and our innovative pipeline is dictated by what we’re hearing from women specifically. And those particular challenges that we haven’t truly been able to address just yet, including the internal vaginal dryness challenge. That is one of our next innovative solutions that’s coming up and I’m super excited.

    Uh, it is going to be, like I mentioned, a game changer. Uh, the [00:36:00] cadence though, is the fact that you have to remember that women again, we have life cycles and that things happen to us at different positions in our lives. And so what I needed as a new mom is very different from what I need is someone going through pre-menopause.

    And so we want to make sure that we’re serving women through, from menstruation to menopause, and as long as we continue to do that and stick to that mission, that cadence will make sense just as a quick corollary, have you seen a lot of cross-selling across the different products with the same customer base.

    Absolutely. So we’ve created a number of bundles based on avatars and personalities. We know what the active women would probably want. We know with what stay at home, moms who are running after their kids would probably want. And so we’ve been able to identify as specific personalities and of course people are different, but we’ve got some general ideas and offer, bundle products to our women to make ordering with kusha.com much easier.

    It [00:37:00] can be Kimba. Am I jumping in here? First of all, um, fantastic job. Um, love, love the pitch and, um, and having, um, seven sisters and two daughters, I have an appreciation for the market, um, for the available market, uh, for that, um, one, you know, one of the barriers, I appreciate all natural products, but one of the barriers and competition that you run into is pricing, right?

    Because that, that, that is a biggest barrier in, in terms of access. Everyone wants on natural, but some can’t afford it. You mentioned the 15 to $30 sort of price range would seems reasonable. Um, is that a, uh, is that sort of competitive price range? You feel sustainable as you expand, um, your expand your products.

    And as I give you, does that provide you mark and that you need to, to sustain the busy. Oh, absolutely. We enjoy a very healthy margin for a couple of reasons. First of course, we promote Kusha or its brand positioning is as a physician’s formula. [00:38:00] There are not many physicians formula in this particular market.

    And so we can ask and get a premium pricing for our products. We do use the best natural organic ingredients. And so that dictates premium pricing as well. But think about whole foods market, you know, someone years ago would have said, can you compete with the general grocery store? And I think they’ve shown us that they can.

    And so these products are particularly for women who are going to prioritize health and in that case money doesn’t matter because as we always say, you pay now or you pay later when it comes to health and the women over 60,000 of them who have already paid for crochet, understand why they’re prioritizing their health.

    And that’s what matters to them. So, yes, I believe it’s sustainable and I believe other markets, including whole foods and, and several other premium grocers have proven, uh, as such. I hope that answers your question and thank you.

    Sure. We could probably go on with a lot of questions, but unfortunately I, [00:39:00] my fun job is to keep this on time. Um, Kimba your passion for crochet comes shining through even in a virtual environment. Congratulations on what you’ve built so far and, um, good luck here. So time for us to meet our yeah. Take care.

    Absolutely. Um, all right. Time to us to meet our next finalist. I’d like everyone to meet Dr. Nicole, Scott co-founder and CEO of Sibley. Sibley is a line of skincare products, specifically created to target your unique skin biomes individual needs. Nicole welcome. We’re thrilled to have you and over to you for your dynamic Fitch.

    Thank you so much. Feel honored to be here amongst such amazing people. Um, and it was, it’s been amazing to connect with them. Hi, my name is Nicole Scott. I’m a PhD Genesis and the CEO of Sibley microbiome today. Skincare products, target symptoms and not [00:40:00] problems. We use the microbiome to treat problems directly and create healthier skin.

    Our microbiome is the bacteria, single celled organisms and viruses that live as a community. This community is crucial to our health. Many of us are aware of how the microbiome provides nutrients in the gut. The same way the microbiome provides health to the skin. 85 million people in the us alone struggle with lifelong skin conditions, acne eczema, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis.

    There’s this means multiple trips to the doctor. Who’s basically guessing and checking and the solutions. They get our products with terrible side effects. There’s no solution and no prevention. That’s one in six people with skin conditions, including myself. These are some of my atopic dermatitis belts from 2019 alone.

    And the us [00:41:00] we’re paying 40 billion and out of pocket costs on these conditions. I too have been trying to get relief for years. I’ve gone to doctors. They’re basically guessing and checking. In fact, I don’t even try to go to doctors for relief now because the solutions that they keep giving me have dangerous long-term side effects.

    I’ve got to choose from things that suppress my immune system to harm my kidneys, kidneys, to thin my skin, these prescription and over-the-counter solutions. Try to treat the symptoms and not the problem. Civilly system treats the problem by boosting true skin health by using your own microbiome. This means zero side effects, zero doctor visits, and a hundred percent natural, and it’s actually more effective than prescription products.

    We’ve launched the revolutionary skincare [00:42:00] brand rouleaux to showcase these products through low self skin conditions. By increasing your skin health, we think of your cosmetic products as food for your skin biome. We don’t try to use probiotics. We don’t try to put a microbe that doesn’t belong on your skin.

    We leverage your skin microbiome to make compounds that increase your skin health and have no side effects. Our first products in Reuleaux target the ceremonies semis are essential. Building blocks of your skin barrier. Ceramides regulate key cell functions at Sibley. Our topical serum teaches your skin how to build with bricks, but competing products are actually layering on straw and the way the cosmetics industry is currently getting ceremonies is bad for the environment.

    They’re getting it from the plasma of overweight dairy cows. We’ve got a [00:43:00] better way. We’re incredibly safe. We’ve done numerous patch tests, clinical studies and laboratory safety test. In fact, in our most recent IRB approved 15 weeks study, we had highly significant changes in inflammation and beauty.

    This includes changes in sensitivity, redness, irritation, itchiness, inflammation, hyperpigmentation, moisture, skin tone, amongst others that are dermatologist reviewed or before and after photos and saw improvements in modeling and redness. Scars decreases in hyperpigmentation increases in modeling the skin and redness and hyperpigmentation reductions in hyperpigmentation, redness, acne increased vitality decreases in hyperpigmentation comedones and increased vitality and even scar reductions.

    It’s natural. Our solution treats the [00:44:00] problem resulting in more effectiveness and zero side effects by by feeding your skin biome, we get totally natural native Sarah mind compounds by solving the problem and having no side effects. We’ve created a solution that can be used preventatively. This saves customers thousands of dollars a year at Sibley.

    Our products are made on your skin. We currently have a high margin on a $67 bottle of serum. Not at scale. We can purchase our ingredients at scale and made by CMS. Our customers also give us rave reviews. We have customers like Wendy who saw great results, worth their skin, texture and tone, and even surprised her own dermatologist or Amanda who saw changes in scars and love the superiority of the routine.

    We’ve launched our direct to consumer brand through low based on focus group discussions. We’ve created a phenomenal [00:45:00] experience around our products and assessment because the experience is so positive. We have incredible retention and low churn amongst our subscribers, but let me walk you through that experience.

    The journey begins when customers take a quick quiz based on their skin conditions from this treatment plan, healing can begin with the very first delivery of our serum. We also deliver microbiome assessments with this skin assessment and continuous subscription. We can further dial in our products and get even better results so that customers see better value.

    We saw a massive opportunity in the inflammation and inflammation suffers that haven’t found any results from physicians. Inflammatory concerns tend to run in families. So there’s a natural organic growth, and we’ve already experienced this from early customers because of the unique and compelling results for these inflammation concerns.

    We’ve seen customers [00:46:00] in additional spaces, such as beauty, functional and moisture as well. Based on our current numbers, we’re poised to hit more than a million ARR in less than 12 months. We’re also targeting longterm customers, other companies in the space, lack of integration between consumer and R and D they’re either repackaging common ingredients, or have a simple test for consumers without any kind of product or solution.

    We’re the only company offering a way to identify the problem and also provides a solution. Plus since we’ve had, we have a platform, we can make many, many more such products. In fact, we have nine patents pending and four other assets that are ready to be made into products. In fact, long term, our IP protected platform combined with the network effect from our longitudinal diagnostic data collection allows us to create more solutions and products, and we’ll [00:47:00] provide a moat for our growing brands of health products and those other assets I was just talking about.

    Here’s just one example. We’ve figured out how to get your skin biome to make hyleronic acid. That’s the most common ingredient in anti-aging cosmetics, but rouleaux is just the tip of the iceberg. Our platform can continue to act in the skinny space or other spaces such as supplements. Personal care and even pets.

    And the next year of years, we’ll expand into anti-aging lines, plant supplements in the skincare space, as well as diagnostics in adjacent spaces. We’re the right team to lead. I’m an expert in the microbiome. With over 20 years of experience, I was the first employee at my last company, or I commercialize the microbiome in the industrial sector.

    My awesome co-founder Brian has brought numerous products to market as an, and is an expert in growth. He’s led over a [00:48:00] hundred million in sales and growth. Rubo has been a solution for me. People like me with atopic dermatitis, eczema psoriasis. We’re one of the largest growing segments in skincare and cosmetics.

    And we want solutions, but our products don’t just solve my problems. Tom was a participant in our recent clinical study. We launched products because Tom wanted to know how we could keep using the product. After the study ended, he’s now a customer going on six months, he stopped using his topical hydrocortisone for inflammation as he didn’t like the side effects.

    He felt our serum solved his problem and prevented a new one. We’d love to partner with PNG to have support for our brand access to scale and build more products together. This is just the beginning. If you use this QR code, you’ll get access to a subscription member level discount to try our revolutionary new [00:49:00] products.

    It’s only good until the end to see it. Yes. Thank you very much.

    Awesome, Nicole, what a great pitch, how provocative I love this biome construct, but again, my thoughts don’t really matter and all this at least not yet. So, so over to our team judges for some terrific questions for you. So judges,

    oh, thank you. Um, great presentation. Um, I do have a question around the mechanism of action that you would refer to that seems to generate the different compounds surmise on maybe caloric acid on the skin. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And can you also, you do that, how would that be different versus other microbiome based solutions that we kind of seen?

    I mean, I I’d literally get, uh, lots of, [00:50:00] uh, emails around magical solutions in this space. So can you elaborate that. Right. So our products are prebiotics. So we’re feeding, feeding, very specific targeted compounds to your skin microbiome. And then the skin biome is actually making these specific long-chain ceramides for you.

    So that’s a very, very different mechanism. Action. We are not putting any microbes. We’re not no probiotics. This is literally using what already exists. There.

    Probably me as code different is one product for one customer versus the other. And is it the custom made product or is the serum works with 80% of the clients that may have the same symptoms or problems? [00:51:00] So our product works on nearly everyone because the functional piece of what’s on your microbiome is what we’re targeting the, the common functionality.

    And there’s a lot of commonality between our microbiomes and what they’re doing. And so through the experience that we’re our questionnaire and the assessments that we’re doing, we are able to point them to the best product amongst our lineup, and also the routine and experience.

    Great. Cool. This is a great pitch. As someone whose skincare routine has moved from one product to seven products, I’m open for business on new products. So, uh, I love this one. Hey, I got a question, which is, so one of the things that we’ve struggled with is habit formation, which is having consumers deal with the complexity and usage and stick to the routine.

    So how critical is the subscription model for you [00:52:00] and how do you feel about what would need to be different or similar to be successful in bricks and mortar stores versus DTC? So the subscription piece really dial because it’s dialing in the products and routine, it really hooks people in and we’re actually better able to meet the person’s needs if you imagine over time.

    So that’s one piece of it. So there’s sort of a natural subscription piece to it. Um, the other piece is, I think you mentioned, you know, how did, how do you hook that into retail? I’d say it’s the same thing. We’re targeting a group of people and I’m one of these people that has not found solutions and is actively looking and they are researching and they are, once you find something that works for you, you are, you don’t want to stop using it because you want the same effect.

    You don’t want to have inflammation. You don’t want to have the skin.[00:53:00] 

    Nicole. Could you, uh, describe, you mentioned 1 million, um, ARR, uh, can you talk a little bit about follow on, on a guy, asks on your, what is your distribution, um, model? Can you talk a little bit about the distribution model that got you to, that? I know part of it is subscription. Um, I’m not clear whether that’s all of it.

    Yes. So that is our projected over the next 12 months are our ARR. But what we are main area right now is e-commerce, but we are also have distribution in Taiwan and Europe and we are moving into Amazon. Gotcha. And all that distribution is less about geography and more, how do you get into the customer?

    So is it all direct to consumer currently? Yes. So, so, right. So we’re targeting that inflammation space, which we have found is a great group [00:54:00] of people to meet via the, um, Sen and really cause these are people actively looking and researching new products for their inflammation and skin concerns.

    Great pitch. I love the products. I also suffer from skin conditions. So I know this very well and like guy, I try a lot of different skin products. So this will be an interesting one to explore. My question is really around, um, you know, a lot of products for skin conditions specifically have some type of dependency associated with them.

    So once you start down the path of using the product to wean yourself off of the product, it can create additional inflammation and actually a worse problem. Um, are there any dependency issues associated with the products you’re developing? I think that’s the great thing. We don’t have any side effects.

    You can keep using the product. In fact, it can become a [00:55:00] preventative for you and it’s got great beauty effects too. And so the fact is we’re fundamentally creating healthier skin and that’s the part you’re getting out of that cycle that you’re normally in.

    That’s encouraging. And just a quick follow on to, um, you mentioned on one of your slides that you have proprietary bioavailable ingredients. Can you explain this just a little bit more? How their proprietary. Yeah. So those are, those are the things that we’re actually feeding the, uh, your, your skin biome.

    And so we have a strategy to project those which includes patenting, trademarking, and branding.

    If I may ask a simple question, sorry. I have to play the velvet hammer role to make it equal for all [00:56:00] Nicole fabulous pitch. Super provocative. Thank you for joining us and congratulations on being a finalist. Great question judges. I assume Victor might be first to the line there and I assumed right the time to meet our third finalist.

    So welcome to moody. Solomon moody is the co-founder and CEO of ripe a business that uses science to keep food fresh for longer and reduce food waste. Moody. Welcome, Greg, glad to have you with us and take it away. Thank you so much, Phil. It’s a pleasure to be here, uh, and I’ll jump right into it. So we have a massive global problem on our hands today that has devastating, economical, social, and environmental consequences.

    That problem is food waste. And I’m here today to tell you how we at Wright labs are tackling this problem head on first. Let’s put it in practice. So over the next 10 minutes, by the time I’m done with this [00:57:00] presentation, we will have wasted enough food to feed over 10 million people. That’s enough to feed every single person in Vegas for over two weeks.

    That very same food waste is going to release over 60,000 metric tons of CO2 gas, which is equivalent to what 15,000 cars are going to release over the next year. And again, this is happening every 10 minutes. This is due to the fact that we have an unbelievably inefficient global food supply chain system up to 50% of all the food we produce goes to waste.

    And that food waste is experienced all across the supply chain, from the farm all the way down to the consumer amounting to over $2.6 trillion in losses every single year. So to come up with a solution that is truly going to have a meaningful impact, it has to be easy to. Can be applied anywhere along the supply chain and perhaps most importantly, an economical solution that our customers can adopt.

    And this is exactly what we did at Wright. We have developed a 100% safe, natural patent ending formulation that can be applied to virtually any [00:58:00] surface, including stickers. You simply peel the sticker with our formulation, applied to the fruit or a packaging of the fruit. It will release natural volatiles active compounds that will extend the shelf life of the produce.

    So let me show you how we have here to mango side-by-side. As you can see, the one on the left does not have a sticker. The one on the right is treated with the sticker. And at about day 14, the non-treated mango will start to prematurely rot while the one on the right is a lot more resistant to the premature riding.

    In essence, we’ve doubled the shelf life of this mango. And so the question on everyone’s mind at this point is how in the world do you guys do this? Well, the best way to explain this is to look at clients, let’s say, for example, you’re walking by a lavender plant, you’re going to smell the lavender. It’s going to have a pleasant smell to us as humans, and that’s actually a secondary metabolite or a volatile, um, that the plant is releasing that has a variety of attributes.

    One of which is to protect itself from invasive species, um, which include microbes and fungal species. And so what we do at Wright labs [00:59:00] that’s particularly unique is we can identify the specific compounds within those secondary metabolites, that the plant releases that tackle specific post-harvest diseases in the vapor.

    That’s the first step. The second step is to then encapsulate or trap these compounds by engineering, a matrix that can extend their release rate over time, and then gives us the ability to apply that matrix or that formulation to a variety of surfaces, including stickers. You simply peel apply the sticker to the fruit.

    And what we’re essentially done is we’ve repurposed health plans have been protecting themselves for millions of years to extend the shelf. Life of fresh produce formulation is 100% safe. In fact, compliant with both FDA and EU regulations, uh, you can actually eat the formulation or the stickers are actually edible.

    What this essentially means is we can go to market without pre-market approval necessary. Now our ability to customize our solution offerings is key because when you look at the industry, we can offer our product in a variety of formats. [01:00:00] For example, the stickers can be incorporated and the highly automated labeling machines that can process them label up to 20 million pieces of fruit per day.

    Uh, but of course, you’re not going to add a sticker to every strawberry or blueberry. In this case, you could use our shelf defense labels to apply to your clam shell of the berries, which will extend the shelf life of those berries. We have sachets that could be applied to larger boxes of fresh produce, and we’re also working on spray coatings that can be applied directly to the packaging materials, such as the trays of the fruits so that our customers are essentially not adding anything into their.

    From an IP protection standpoint, we have of course, multiple barriers to entry. First is our know how we have deep expertise in plant physiology and microbiology that we’ve garnered over the last four and a half years on a very deep understanding of post-harvest diseases in which diseases are affecting which fruits as well as the kinetics and thermodynamics of volatile compounds.

    Our trade secrets are also key. We have been building a proprietary library of formulation combinations [01:01:00] against a variety of post-harvest diseases, optimized controlled release delivery systems and custom manufacturing processes to develop these technologies. And last but not least, of course, our patents and trademarks, we have four pending applications, five to be filed this year, uh, international trademarks in over 40 countries behind this amazing technology is an equally amazing talent.

    And I’m very passionate team of engineers and scientists that we have garnered from the medical device, biotech and tech industry. With one mission of tackling food waste from a competitive landscape standpoint, ripe labs is quite unique. We do not need to be in direct contact with the product that we’re protecting or extending the shelf life for a lot of the technologies on the market today.

    Um, extend the shelf life by focusing more on the ripening process. Or the respiration process of the produce to put it in a form of hibernation. We directly target fungal growth, especially post packaging, where there are minimal solutions outside of refrigeration. We can be applied anywhere along the [01:02:00] supply chain and we can customize our delivery system to seamlessly fit within the existing supply chain.

    So last year we launched our pilot studies and we have already garnered the interest of some of the largest household names in the industry, including the likes of Walmart and Aldi. And they have seen 50 to a hundred percent shelf life extension. What does that mean? Well, for one of those largest global retailers, we added two days to their strawberries.

    We doubled the shelf life of their grapes by adding eight days. And we added 15 days to their superfoods, which is significant by retail standards. This is where we are today. As you’ll notice, the majority of our customers are bundled around the distributor and the retail segment. So our bread and butter is really B2B.

    However, the B2C or the end consumer is an enormous market opportunity and its own rights. But in order to break into this segment, we have to partner with someone that has deep expertise in bringing solutions into people’s homes every day. And that’s where P and G comes [01:03:00] into play. So first let’s look at the consumer market.

    On average, the us household loses up to $2,000 of food annually. About a fourth of that is fruits and vegetables alone. And 66% of that is due to food spoilage. So we’re really looking at an initial addressable market, just for fruits and vegetables of over $10 billion. So how can write clubs work with P and G?

    Well, we can first start with a strategic partnership to market and sell the stickers at people’s home. You can simply buy a pack of the stickers and apply it to your fruit at home. Uh, we can bundle our labels with the food containers, the glad food container line. We can even add our sessions to the zipper bags that include the snacks.

    And eventually we can use our coatings and the infusion of our compounds into existing food wraps to further strengthen their ability to extend the shelf life of a book. So this is what it would look like at your home. Those are actual tests that we’ve conducted in house. This is what your strawberries would look like after five days, if you just placed them on the counter at room temperature, [01:04:00] this is what it looks like when you add our label to the inside of that clamshell.

    If you add refrigeration, you can further extend the shelf life, of course, but there would still be significant more growth. After 14 days, we can inhibit that significantly with our solution and we’ve ran a cost benefit analysis and estimate that for every dollar a customer would spend on our technology, they could potentially save up to $4, meaning that they would see a 400%.

    From a go-to-market strategy. We are looking at two phases in the first phase. It would be a co-branding co-marketing strategy with P and G to bring the solution to people’s homes. And eventually as we scale and grow, we can license out the formulation. It’s volume based pricing with average gross margin, gross margins, anywhere from 50 to 92%.

    And for our commercial milestones, we’re looking at commercially launching in Q2 of this year, which we’re really excited about. And we can launch as early as Q4 of 2022 in [01:05:00] collaboration with P and G for the end consumer market. And we will be looking at breaking even as early as 2023, tackling food waste is just the beginning, the power of this technology from an antifungal perspective, and also the ability to customize and apply it anywhere along the supply chain, we envision many opportunities across multiple verticals across the entire PNG family.

    So to tie it all up with this technology in partnership with PNG at the end consumer level alone every year, right, flaps and P and G can save enough food to feed over 19 million people and prevent or save 5 million metric tons of CO2 gas from being released in the air. We breathe. I’m moody. Solomon, thank you so much.

    And we hope you join us in the fight against food waste.

    Moody. Wow. I mean, incredibly disruptive. Congratulations. Um, uh, and I’m, [01:06:00] I’ve got a, I’ve got a couple of burning questions, but I don’t matter again. So over to our panel of judges, uh, who I’m sure have some questions for you. So judges over to you. Can I jump in first on this one? Um, mangled lover and strawberry enthusiastic here.

    So I loved your presentation. Um, uh, if you had thrown in bananas in there, I would have been even more jazz, but I know you can deal with those. So that’s good. The question is you’ve got labels, sachets, coding, sprays stickers, and then refrigerated non-refrigerated. So fruits and vegetables. So as it relates to the B2C opportunity, tell us where do you, where do you rank these priorities?

    So, which would be the best sweet spot of form of efficacy and type of food and then refrigerated or non. So what would be the biggest ones and what are the ones that you think need more development? Yeah. Excellent [01:07:00] question. Um, I would say we typically see the largest amount of interest for high value short shelf life.

    So that automatically translates to. Mainly strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries. For example, you have a very short shelf life and outside of refrigeration, minimal solutions, um, because of a variety of reasons that we could go into. Um, now for those, we would use the labels, uh, and, uh, we would, uh, recommend to use them under refrigerated conditions to further extend their shelf life and prevent their losses.

    Greg, still a company as well as Taylor farm. And like, if you could land one of those companies in their [01:08:00] consumer packet, it would be

    consider going consumer directly at all. If we pull through 1.3 billion, $5 billion companies, that if you like your product, they could that every

    household in America. Yeah. I mean, you’ve, you’ve basically summarized our business model today, right? This is why we’re going directly to those distributors, to the Driscoll’s of the world. That’s our brand. Um, to market to those customers because they’re very centralized global to your point with massive operations.

    So it makes sense to go to them first, but it doesn’t negate the fact that there’s a huge market opportunity on the consumer side, but to break into this highly fragmented difficult market, um, that’s [01:09:00] where the PNG collaboration would become really key. When, how much is your sales through Driscoll or Taylor farm or your projected sale this year?

    Yeah, we, for this year, uh, we project that we’re going to launch in Q2 of this year and we project revenue of $2.9 million to begin. And that’s assuming that we’re only capturing anywhere from 10 to 20% of their operations. So the assumption there is dress calls may be selling a billion clamshells of strawberries every year.

    They’re not going to apply this to all 1 billion from the get-go. Um, so we were quite conservative in terms of that projection,

    um, moody, excellent presentation, and very disruptive, you know, is, is, um, this guy mentioned earlier, our big, you mentioned earlier, um, my question is along the line of supply chain is the supply chain. We’re in a supply chain question, but it’s going to sound a [01:10:00] little bit different. So where, where do you have to capture, um, where do you have to capture the moment.

    Um, to, to, to put this, this, your sticker on, and I’m thinking that is it we’re in the process from the farm to the table, at what point to make it effect for the most, um, towards, to be most effective. Yeah, really good question. And we’ve looked at this quite quite deeply fact of the matter is as long as you can keep the pressure on the fungal strains and keep them suppressed, um, for the longest period of time, but period of time, that’s where it’s going to be most effective.

    So there’s an opportunity to apply it right after post harvest, right after it’s picked at the farm level during the exporting process. And there’s an opportunity then once it reaches the distribution centers to once again, apply the technology, perhaps in a different format that fits the clamshells closer to the end consumer level.

    So as long as you can keep that pressure on suppress the fungal strains, because a lot of the fruits we eat today, as much as people may not want to know is [01:11:00] already infected with that Fung, with those, those fun guide, which is completely fine for us humans to consume. It’s just a matter of suppressing them.

    So they stay at a low enough level to be safe for consumption. Um, and so once again, this really highlights the why this technology is so highly differentiated because we have an ability to apply it anywhere along that supply chain. Hope that answers your question quick one from my end. Uh, do you need a different cocktail of anti-fungal, uh, compounds for different kinds of.

    Uh, yes and no. So we don’t have one silver bullet formulation that works for everything, but we also don’t have to customize or develop a different cocktail for every fruit or every fungal strain out there, what we develop or what we try to develop as a formulation with the broadest applicability possible.

    Um, so in my experience, this is a really profound ability to keep fruits and vegetables on the shelves longer. And it works from what I’ve seen. [01:12:00] We worked with a company that was doing this with a very large grocery chain. Um, the one challenge that we saw in doing that is when consumers have the options side-by-side to select fresh fruit versus fruit that has been preserved regardless of the mechanism, right.

    They prefer the fresh fruit. And so how have you seen the consumer adoption and just changing consumer behavior around opting for something that has been preserved? Yeah, I think that’s really going to be once again, key of what our partnership would look like with P and G because they know how to communicate to the end consumer and what we can, the opportunity here is to really communicate to them that this is a 100% natural and safe way of suppressing the fun guy and extending the shelf life without effecting the organoleptic properties or the quality of the produce for the.

    Moody. Awesome. Awesome pitch judges. Great questions. I [01:13:00] can’t be the only person out there too is wondering if like if I wear it, will it preserve me longer? Okay. You do not need to answer that question anyway. All right. Time for our last finalist. And I’d like to introduce you to Cindy Santa Cruz, who is the founder and CEO of lady patch, the only drug free patch to prevent female ladder bladder leaks, and reduce the urge to urinate, Cindy, welcome or thrilled to have you and over to you for your terrific pitch.

    Thank you, Phil. Um, good morning. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the opportunity to introduce to you my company, lady patch. Do you know when in three women pee their pants? That’s right. One third of women around the world suffer with incontinence. It’s usually an after effect of childbirth or as women enters menopause.

    It’s huge, huge problem. But allow me to introduce to you our [01:14:00] revolutionary solution lady patch, the only drug-free patch to control your bladder lady patches founded by women for women, the lady patch. Isn’t my story. It’s my mom’s story. In the early eighties, she wants to lose some baby weight. And so she decided to join, uh, an aerobics class and it was during that time.

    She never had a problem with incontinence before. It was during that time where she did her first jumping jacket was mortified that she was peeing on herself and couldn’t control it. Couldn’t stop it for years. She struggled and tried everything under the kitchen sink pads didn’t work, tampons didn’t work.

    Pantyliners didn’t work, nothing worked to stop the leaks. She just prayed one day and said, God helped me find a solution. And through divine intervention, inspiration, actually, um, she formed this little patch, this little patch, but went to go do aerobics. It was shocked and amazed that she wasn’t leaking on herself.

    Now, my [01:15:00] mom does not have a background in medicine. She is a stay at home. Mom, no pads, no drugs, no surgery, just when tiny but mighty patch is what keeps kept her dry

    lady patch helps the four different types of incontinence nocturia. When you wake up more than two times a night to urinate stress incontinence, when you leak a little, your own physical activity, which is laughing, coughing, sneezing, or jumping urinary frequency, the need to urinate many times during the day, like every three seconds when you were pregnant, how many women remember that?

    One urge incontinence is setting in strong need to urinate. Sometimes you make it to the toilet and sometimes.

    Lady patch gives you more control over your bladder. So you’ll urinate when you need to and not just feel like you need to. So how does lady patch help you master your bladder? Yes, it does go directly onto your clutter is [01:16:00] the main nerve of the clutter is, is a direct branch of the pew Denzel nerve, the pudendal nerve controls bladder function.

    So by placing our theory by placing lady patch on the clutter is you can control your bladder during our clinical trial, 83% of women that had urinary urgency. So a decrease in their urgency instances, 67% of women that has stress urinary incontinence. So a decrease in their leakage episodes. And with that, we are FDA and California.

    FDB approved. It is safe and effective. Zero side effects. Lady’s zero side effects. And so many of you wonder, wait a minute, how do I place this thing? What do I do with it? And I created a little tutorial for you and don’t worry, guys, you won’t be embarrassed. Many of you ladies have ladies have asked us how and where to place lady patch and we get it.

    It can be a little [01:17:00] intimidating. Once you find out where it goes, yes, it does go directly onto your clitoral and know it doesn’t hurt. And we’re here to show you where to place it. You can place it long ways like this. You can place it sideways like this. Some women have found that if it’s too big, they cut it in half for a better fit.

    The beauty of lady patches, you can wear it in whichever way is most comfortable for you, but don’t take our word for it. Check out our phenomenal reviews on Amazon. And although I love reading through our, through our reviews on Amazon, I love it. When women message me directly, many, many women have messaged me directly.

    One woman in particular was the best driver and was contemplating quitting her job to kind of control the leaks. She couldn’t control how many times she needed to urinate. She couldn’t control the smell. She smelled like urine all the time. Don’t know how she stumbled upon lady patch that she did. Not only was she able to keep her job, but [01:18:00] she was able to keep her dignity as well.

    Currently there’s a large existing market with $5 billion and sub optimal solutions to a billion in consumer products. The only managed symptom pads and adult diapers only collect the leaks. They don’t stop the leaks and this tiny, but mighty patch stops the leak. 1.8 billion and medications with significant side effects, dry eyes, dry mouth constipation.

    That’s only today. I’m a few lady patch has zero side effects, 1 billion in medical devices, the downtime recovery time, incision infection. Lady patch is non-invasive lady patch is uniquely and aggressively protected. We have eight issued us patents in two registered trademarks. Here’s our go-to market approach right now, lady patches currently on Amazon for [01:19:00] 1999, we need the help.

    We need the help of the Procter and gamble family. We need to incentivize at least 100 lady patch, evangelists, influencers, physical therapists, OB GYN, to purchase and review in quarter one of 2022. It’s word of mouth that really drives lady patch. It is a girlfriend’s product and it’s with that we can learn from our customer feedback, make whatever changes we need to make, and then scale up by year two, with the help of Procter and gamble.

    It could be in target Walgreens, Costco, CVS, Walmart, you name it. And right now I am currently a one man show, but I do have an amazing advisory team, Suzanne Sangamon terrain, I mean, and Eric weeder or my business advisors. They are my CPG marketeers as I call them. They’re amazing. And they have helped so much along the way.

    My scientific advisors are one of the three top urogynecologists in the United States [01:20:00] and they love, they love women’s pelvic floor. So they’re very, very helpful. Together with the Proctor and gamble family, we can help women all over the world stage. Right? Just like my mom. Remember ladies who patched live boldly, laugh, release, sleep soundly, and live spontaneously again.

    Thank you for your time. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Cindy Santa Cruz. I’m the founder and CEO of the lady patch. I’m just a stay at home. Mom. I’m trying to give them back their freedom and a little sick unit. Cindy, what a great pitch, how amazing to be inspired and work with your mother closely like that, that makes it that much Lusher, um, or heartfelt and enduring.

    So, um, congratulations. But now comes the hard part, some questions from our judges. So judges over to you for some questions for.

    I can jump in, um, [01:21:00] Cindy, great job. I want to just commend you so much. This is a huge problem. And I think one of the challenges you outlined is on the market. Currently, there are really great alternatives, right? You women suffer a lot from this problem and there’s a big market out there and it’s sometimes difficult to talk about, but you did an excellent job presenting it.

    So congratulations on that first and foremost. Thank you. I think one of the things that we’ve seen in this market of what I would call kind of personal or intimate products, especially in the men’s category, when you’re talking about like low T or rectal dysfunction, um, we’ve seen significant traction with kind of a direct consumer model, right?

    So the confidence and the secrecy of being able to order it online, not having to go to the store and being embarrassed at checkout, et cetera, um, has been, has shown a lot of traction. And there’s been a lot of big exits in this category recently. Um, when you think about consumer [01:22:00] adoption, um, and, and the ability of consumers to kind of embrace this and use it in lieu of like you were saying, adult diapers, um, how have you seen the traction and, and the, has there been hesitation or embarrassment in having to use products like this and purchasing products like.

    Right. That’s the beauty of being on Amazon, because it is Rady patch is a taboo solution to a taboo problem. And Amazon provides a very private way of purchasing a product that you wouldn’t necessarily, you know, you wouldn’t want to purchase in front of people. Um, so that has given us, you know, some traction, um, the biggest problem, I would say our biggest challenge obstacle is disbelief.

    Women don’t believe that this little thing is going to help them. And that’s why I believe word of mouth is [01:23:00] huge for this type of product, this a girlfriend’s product,

    just the ease of use, right? Like the area where you would be applying the patch is kind of hard to see. Right. And it seems like it’s very manual and how you kind of have to insert it or, or place it on is the ease of use something that has been a barrier. Um, the ease of use. No, actually that hasn’t been a barrier.

    Well, let me say this. It’s a new behavior. It’s a new behavior. And so the new behavior, um, has to be introduced, but once women have tried it and they stopped leaking, they love it. So it’s that? Yes, it is that hurdle of getting over, um, the first year. That makes sense. Hey, Cindy, I just wanted to build on that.

    First of all, love it. The heartwarming picture of you and your mom, [01:24:00] um, how you’ve helped her. It’s just incredible. So I love your story. Uh, so, and I love how simple question. So you mentioned that one of the things you want to do is get more consumer feedback to figure out what you need to do if needed to improve the product further.

    Tell me what do you see as the biggest consumer issues or concerns? And let me do a one B, which is, are there times when, um, consumers or women really want to take this off? I’m thinking about intimacy or other occasions, and are there any negatives associated with bladder control when it’s taken off? Um, so maybe you can help me a little bit with what are the biggest issues and given this as a new habit in an intimate area, you know, what concerns do you have in terms of potential improvements?

    Okay. So, yes. Um, the biggest challenge we have right now is, uh, for some women it’s sliding off, it’s not sticky enough, so it puts us in a position. I don’t see it as a problem. I see [01:25:00] it more as like, you know, an opportunity that we can create another skew right now, lady patches sold as a dual product. We have regular or like everyday use and then active.

    For, um, exercise going out for the women that had this slide off on, um, we can create like a, SuperSport a stickier, uh, secure patch. And we can even create one for overnight, which is more, uh, a more gentle, um, patch and for the women that, um, you know, for intimate time, once you take the patch off your body goes back to normal.

    What you would say normal. When we say there are zero side effects, your body really just kind of adapts to being back to biofeedback. So your body just relearn to not leak on itself. So when you take it off, um, during an intimate time, most, most women are saying, um, I wasn’t going to say this, [01:26:00] but most women are saying they’re having better sex, stronger orgasms.

    So they’re very, very happy. I like to think of lady patch, saving relationships.

    Okay. Thank you. May I ask where you got the price 1999. And is that like for one month consumption or how much would it cost the some ladies per month to be on this product? Right. So 1999 is just a price point that we decided. My other business advisors, it was just a good number. Um, and monthly, uh, the lady patch, the, the regular comes with 18 patches and active patch comes with 18 patches.

    So if a woman uses one a day, it’ll last her, you know, four to six weeks, [01:27:00] four to five weeks. Um, if they purchase it twice a month, cause they’re using it twice a day. Um,

    I think the marketing aspects of it, like dollar shave club or other subscription models, if you go to some number, like even this, a disposable eye lenses, they go to certain number per day. And if it really is a life-changing experience, like a dollar a day would be a good number to say you would have a better life and better.

    Uh, so, so again, I don’t know how you market it, but it’s somehow saying this much per day would change your life and you just buy it for three [01:28:00] months. I think that would be a great way to get people, to use it and then stick with it. Yeah, I’m open to anything. I think that would be great too. Awesome.

    Cindy, thank you so much for the powerful presentation and a life altering aspect of lady patch, congratulations, and to Kimba Nicole Moody and Cindy, um, you know, wow. Uh, I can see why the four of you made it through to our four finalists. I know it was, um, hard for even our judges to assess, to get you here, but wow, what great stories, what great pitches, but life changing innovations that you all are creating.

    But now we get to turn it over to our, uh, judges, um, who will have 10 minutes to deliberate on our winner. And so we’re going to send them off to do a challenging task, um, and come [01:29:00] back and let us know when they’ve decided and we’ll award our winner for the innovation challenge. And while they’re doing.

    I also have a privilege of having a conversation with two terrific people, Colin Campbell, and Michelle , who are both serial entrepreneurs, love that description. And they are co owners of the startup club, which is the number one community out on clubhouse. Um, as a quick aside, I’ll mention the P and G ventures is collaborating with startup club throughout CES this week to host some great conversations, talking about entrepreneurship, fundraising, um, developing a great idea, you know, pitching, uh, and, and so many more so.

    And in fact, I’ve, I know many of you are joining us today as we’re, simulcasting the innovation challenge on clubhouse right now. So I’m Michelle Colin. Hello. Thanks for joining us. Um, nice to meet you, sorry. We’re [01:30:00] not in Vegas doing this together, but I really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you all.

    Absolutely. It was definitely a pivot really would have enjoyed being in Vegas, but you know what, I’m listening to it live here and also on clubhouse is pretty exciting as well. I think this must be a first where P and G is streaming through clubhouse as well. So, and we are, we’re super excited about that.

    So, um, so thank you for the collaboration and partnership. We’re thrilled. Do I see Michelle at. There you are. I see a picture now we have a picture for oh, excellent. Thank you. Yeah, this has been an amazing experience. And thank you again for having us. We’re so thrilled that we’re able to bring the startup club on clubhouse members, this amazing competition.

    Thank you. [01:31:00] Absolutely. Absolutely. While you’re there. So why don’t we just spend a little bit of time? Obviously, a lot of people are coming into us from clubhouse, but also from a streaming from other, um, means to hear this. So why don’t you do a little bit about, tell us a little bit about start-up club and what does it really offer the entrepreneur Michelle?

    Absolutely. So our whole goal with the startup club is to help people connect, learn and grow. It’s really that straightforward, um, core to our beliefs, Colin and I in the past. And currently is that if you can surround yourself with people that you can vet ideas, learn from your, that just takes you infinitely more, you know, ahead of the game.

    So it’s really critical for us that we’re always providing amazing content that fuels that whole ecosystem. So whether you’re a startup yourself opposed, and like these folks that [01:32:00] we’ve heard starting a startup, or you’re a VC. Investor or you’re somebody who wants to work at a startup, you’re more than welcome.

    And we encourage you to join us on our sessions. We also have amazing content that we’ve been building out on our website, which is www startup.club. So for us, it’s all about the community and the members and helping them connect, learning, grow. Thank you. Awesome, Michelle, you know, just, you know, since joining myself and knowing we were going to be together today, you know, just perusing all the great topics that you all are sharing with the community.

    It’s really, really impressive. So, um, yours in columns kind of curation of this is, is really fantastic. So Colin, over to you a couple of questions. So you’ve been involved in many businesses, startups, I’m sure our audience would love to know. What are the kinds of things that you think about when you decide [01:33:00] personally to lean in and get started on taking something from the ground up?

    What are the things that you look for in a, in an opportunity? Yeah, well, you know, ideas are everywhere. Um, I know in my first job, uh, I was looking for ideas. I think that, um, we’ve never been in a better time in history to launch a startup. And if you can see ideas like we did today, um, when Cindy was talking about the lady patch, um, she, her mother had experienced an issue in a problem.

    And this often happens in startups is where they identify a problem or an issue. And then they actually develop a product and take that to market. And we see that happening over and over again, uh, on clubhouse, on one of our sessions, there was a lady named Marsha Reese, and she actually, um, has done [01:34:00] about a hundred products.

    And one of her claims to fame is sideways sidewalk, chalk sidewalk, chalk. And with that, she says that she was trying to develop a product that, um, an idea that, that, that would solve an unfulfilled need, you know, you could use regular chalk, but she thought, you know, we need better chalk for the sidewalks.

    And the one thing that I will say is listening to a lot of these serial entrepreneurs on clubhouse, learning from them. It’s incredible. Like it’s an incredible experience. I know Michelle, Michelle was talking about that on start-up club. Um, but if you are a startup out there and you want to, you have an idea, you want to take it to market.

    I think the first place to stop is, is, is startup club on clubhouse and just connect with a lot of other entrepreneurs and those in the ECOS. Uh, I love that message calm. You know, we, we talk a lot about, you know, starting, you know, falling in love with the consumer [01:35:00] problem or the consumer challenge with the tension in their lives as the, as the most critical thing to start versus don’t fall in love with the technology.

    So, um, love that message. All right, Michelle, I’m going to ask you, um, I’m going to, um, one of the things I loved about kind of reading up on you as I, as I should do before we do these kinds of things, you have a great description in, in, on, uh, on start-up club, um, underneath your name, the quote is that all starts with a great idea, the right domain community building and relentless execution.

    Um, I’d like to actually talk a little bit about your opinions around relentless execution. Um, I think most people, when they think about innovation do think about things like a great idea and whatnot, but I was curious as to why you put relentless execution into your description there anything you’d like to build on with us?

    Sure, absolutely. So what I’ve found is where oftentimes people [01:36:00] fail is, you know, they might have this fantastic idea, but if they don’t build the systems or the processes and the team to support going to market, that’s relentless execution, they will, they won’t succeed. It’s very. Let’s just say, oftentimes we might have great ideas, but the hardest part is to, is to really get it done.

    And you know, that might take years and it takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of personal sacrifice. Oftentimes if you don’t have that team and that infrastructure and that mindset in place, it’s very difficult to make it out of the gate. That’s really good point. I think people don’t often associate think words like an activities like discipline with entrepreneurship, but couldn’t agree more with you in that space.

    So, [01:37:00] um, thanks for allowing me to kind of poke at something, but I, I, 1000% support it, which is awesome. Um, so again, for our listeners and people who have joined us, and this question is for both of you, um, you know, at some point throughout your career, whether that be a mentor or, you know, someone has given you arguably a piece of advice that when you look back on it, maybe you didn’t know it was a profound piece of advice at the time, what was being shared with you, but that stuck with you and that you pull, you pull from many times in your career.

    I’d love each of you to share with our listeners, that best piece of advice that you ever received, that you feel really shaped you as a serial entrepreneur and someone who thrives in this. So, uh, let’s start with you first calling. Yeah, I’d go back to 2006 when I was running a small, publicly traded company.

    And, uh, you know, it was a startup. [01:38:00] Uh, we had just gone public and the numbers start. We started flat-lining and as a tech company, that’s not a good thing. Um, we were getting blindsided by the end of the quarter when, uh, we found out certain, uh, numbers or sales or contracts were not coming in. And then my board started to move against me.

    Uh, so it was because we were in a minority position, my brother and I in the company. And so then I brought in a CEO coach, a gentleman named Patrick Dan from rhythm systems and we implemented a number of things to, and systems to help the company scale and grow. But I think the one thing that really made a big difference for us was goal setting annual quarterly, weekly goal setting, which put all of the employees in alignment.

    We brought these changes in, in our company began to accelerate its growth [01:39:00] rate, and we ended up selling to a fortune 500 company three years. That’s awesome calling. Um, if I could, and we’re, we’re getting cued to stretch a little because the judges are having a hard time, so that’s good. I enjoy it. We love that.

    Right, exactly. Um, it was a hard decision. Those were some, some fantastic coaches. Um, and Michelle, we see you now, which I love, um, I’m curious, what behaviors changed in your organization as you set those goals? Collin, I think it’s, it’s, there’s two parts to that, right? There’s always the, how do I set the goal and, and make them probably short-term goals to meet or the spending?

    What have you, but what did you see in your organization as a construct of behavior changes as a result of shaping and adhering to those goals? Well, first of all, by setting an annual goal and quarterly company goal, [01:40:00] now everyone within the organization understands where we need to go and just communicating that is important and getting everyone in alignment.

    Now we would take goal setting down to the individual as well. So everyone would set up personal goals and these were three to five measurable and specific goals that you would try to achieve for that quarter. And then we would do a weekly meeting where we red, yellow, green, those goals. And by doing that, it really, uh, we really identified early on in the quarter where things were not connecting, or we might be an issue because everyone would have to announce, you know, I’m behind on this or, um, are, are doing great with this or whatever.

    So we were able to actually deliver a higher level of performance with these top executives that I was working with. And I think that’s pretty cool. You take your eight players and you really, you know, add some additional systems and, um, a rhythm to the [01:41:00] company and you can see your company scale. I love that.

    And I love the transparency of it. I also love what I would, what I would believe happened to as a, as a result of that is, you know, people leaning in to help in the areas where there were shortcomings, where things weren’t weren’t necessarily working. So I, I, I would sense that drove a sense of collaboration and connection too, which is awesome.

    All right, Michelle, over to you going back to the original question, that one piece of advice that you received at some point in your career, that when you look back at it thought, wow, that was a real turning point. Or that really has stuck with me over the years. Absolutely. So for me, it was about. You know, forming mentorships, but not just forming mentorships, but folks that I could surround myself with to learn from you hear that, you know, in your grad school, you’re [01:42:00] talking right.

    Or planning out a business, but until you really live it, you do not realize the value of it. At first, a lot of startups, you know, they want to really hold their issues or their ideas close to, to, you know, close to themselves. Right. They’re afraid. But the truth of the matter is, is if you surround yourself with the right people and you get into the right networks or groups or clubs, whatever it is, you can just like benefit from that infinitely.

    So what do I mean by that is really being authentic and forming these friendships, whatever mentorships with people that have been there, whether they’ve succeeded or they failed. I mean, there’s just nothing like talking to somebody and learning from somebody who’s been there and done that. So for me, you hear about mentorships.

    You hear about coaches, but I think [01:43:00] there’s a whole other level where you develop your own community, that you surround yourself with, that you trust that you can pick up the phone at any time, you know, schedule a lunch with at any time and really learn. But what’s key to that is really finding those people that are subject matter experts or that have actually been there and really doing that.

    And that’s something by the way that I think that your studio is being, has been able to offer folks that I think is quite amazing. Um, Colin actually has an incubator here in Fort Lauderdale where we’re trying to foster as well. That kind of conversation. Uh, it’s great. Such good advice, Michelle. I mean, I think, um, you know, and, and I, I’d like to even double down on a couple of points.

    I mean, I think it is about mentorship and I’ll speak about my own, you know, behaviors. I I’ve always, I learned many years ago about kind of building your own personal board of directors around [01:44:00] people that could sit around a table and you could visualize and know that they were always there to help you sometimes to push you.

    Um, I got great advice around ensuring that that board of directors was very diverse and that, you know, some people you may not like, but you knew that they offered you really good perspective. It wasn’t about, um, you know, necessarily liking everyone around you, but respecting their opinion and listening to them because, you know, complex, you know, challenges require, you know, complex input and complex thinking.

    So, um, I, I love that message and I love the learning one and you have to kind of be open to listen as those advisors are giving you that really good advice, um, and take that back. And then as the leader, you then ultimately you have to choose what you want and how you want to incorporate. So, um, I think that that’s a fantastic message.

    Yeah. Getting into an incubator, like, um, the one we have here in Fort [01:45:00] Lauderdale, or if there’s another one that I’m involved with called the Alan Levann center, and this is supported by a lot of donations, a lot of government. And just, if you have an idea, you have a startup connecting, getting yourself into one of these centers around the, you know, around the globe, uh, wherever you are, they do exist.

    Um, this is not, you know, I’ll use one of Hillary’s lines, you know, it takes a village. It really does when it comes to a startup. Yeah, absolutely. Well, um, I could do this for like another hour, but I’ve, I haven’t gotten word that there is, um, there is a, a, a, a decision that has been made. Michelle, Colin, thank you so much.

    Uh, and thank you for allowing us to partner with you, the startup club and out on clubhouse, we’re thrilled about this and we look forward to continuing to partner with you all. So, so thank you for joining and thank you to all of the listeners out there. We really, we really appreciate you too. All right.[01:46:00] 

    So I’m going to now turn it over, back over to our judge and president of new business at P and G guy preso to do the very exciting announcement of our winner guy over to you. Um, it’s like bullshit, but it became word.

    Got your, their tools. I think we’re trying to get to you on audio. We do we hear this part or you can see me. I don’t know if you’re hearing me. There you go, guys.

    Yeah, we’re we’re, we’re still trying to work. The audio sounds like at the crucial moment of reveal guy, you might have to write it on a piece of paper. If you can hear me now. Okay. Now I can hear you

    telling me you had a question, right? Because I totally missed you there. The [01:47:00] audio wasn’t I was just talking to you guy for the very exciting announcement and reveal of our winter. Okay. Super awesome. Well, listen, I’ve got three things to share, but I first want to share, uh, how tough this was for us judges.

    I have to tell you if we’re going to add another 20 minutes, we would have used it, but probably wouldn’t have lost. So in view, because you know, um, I know you’ve got other things to do, so we forced, we forced to call, um, any of the four outstanding finalists. And I just wanted to say to Kimba Nicole, uh, to moody to Cindy, uh, it was outstanding.

    Any of the four finalists could have one. Um, and I’m going to come out on that in a second. Uh, just the uniqueness of the ideas, the passion on the consumer pain points, um, and the speed with which with considering everything that’s been happening the last couple of years, you guys have gone from concept idea to product, to market.

    Incredible. Um, and I know that [01:48:00] this hopefully beyond partnering with us and working with us is going to increase a lot of exposure. Not that you guys are going to need it because you all have fantastic ideas, but I really think this is to hopefully help increase a lot of exposure to, to the brilliant stuff you guys are doing.

    So, um, we do have a winner and I’m going to share that now, as I said, it was a forced call. Um, and then I want to comment on the other three. So the one where we have is you can see it lady patch. So congratulations, Cindy

    Um, this is a fantastic for you are so excited. Um, we just felt like the, you know, this is something, um, you know, women around the world are going through, uh, you know, your mother went through it. Um, it’s a, it’s something that really, as we were talking about thriving as you age and really having a dignity [01:49:00] and, you know, not trying to fix a problem that you’re broken, but actually having an incredible life and not having to, and being able to overcome these barriers.

    So we just thought that was just a wonderful, wonderful innovation that you’ve created. Um, so we’re looking forward to talking to you about it, but also we just wanted to thank you for the passion you put into it and, um, your story, your personal story. So thank you. And congratulations.

    We’d have we have one more thing, Phil, that I’d love to share? I don’t know if I’m still on, but we made, um, we made, okay, perfect. We made an exception because we felt like these, just these innovators were just so awesome. Um, and you know, while we wouldn’t be true to pharma, if we gave for $10,000 prizes, we are going to give, make an exception here and give another three, 5,000, um, prizes and awards [01:50:00] to our other three finalists because we felt they were just outstanding.

    Uh, as I said, really tough call. So, um, we just like to congratulate each of you because you’ll each be getting, uh, one of these, but more importantly, just, you know, all of our support and everything to help with advice with partnership piece to the next level. So I just wanted to share that too. Um, and finally all the people who submitted and all the founders just submitted ideas.

    We had a record number, uh, this year, and it was just an incredibly inspiring, um, event for us because, you know, we work in a big company. Um, sometimes we don’t see all the stuff that’s happening outside and it was a humbling experience for us to see what you guys are doing. Um, and we are looking forward to next year.

    Awesome guy. Thank you so much. Congratulations, Cindy, and congratulations, Kimba Nicole and moody too. Um, [01:51:00] we’re privileged to, to find you to work with you, um, and celebrate the incredible innovation that you’ve created. Thank you to all of our judges, Saeed, Sarah Lee, in particular, um, Michelle and Colin, enjoy the conversation and please join us on clubhouse after this for an exclusive conversation with our winners, Cindy and our other finalists, and do keep in touch with us at P and G ventures through the P and G ventures, studio.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn as well.

    Anyway. Thanks everyone for joining us and, uh, have a great rest of your day or wherever you are in the world. Take care, everyone. Thanks for joining the PNG innovation challenge. Wow. Wow, Michelle. I mean, if you’re in the audience here, you don’t, you didn’t see that, but Cindy was in tears and, um, you know, she was just so happy and, and her emotions, hopefully we’ll have her on stage in a minute here.[01:52:00] 

    I know this is a first time that, you know, a number of these, um, individuals are coming on clubhouse. So there might be a few little technical issues, but, uh, we’re hoping to get some of the guests on stage right now. Um, and, uh, what did you think about that? I couldn’t choose one. They were all for, in my opinion, investible companies.

    And, um, they were outstanding. Any thoughts, Michelle? Yeah. I mean, all of those products, I could just see and imagine that they are going to be successful and that they will be able to get funding. They all solved very important problems that people have. It was just amazing. And I love the emphasis on healthy living and reducing food waste.

    Um, additionally, I was extremely impressed with how far they have already gone. So I can only imagine [01:53:00] with, um, help from P and G and others where they can go. So just so thrilled that, um, we were able to witness that and also bring it to our members here on startup club. Well, if we could ping them in the room, um, cause I know we have where we have them on clubhouse.

    It might be hard for them to find the room because it’s been open for a, but if, if Rachel, you could start pinging and pinging them in the room or Michelle, that would be great guy. I, I dunno, I was very touched, um, at that moment when Cindy started crying or tearing up and she just was emotionally, you could see that she had put everything into this.

    And the moment came and she won the award and, you know, any thoughts on, on, on, on seeing that I can book,

    I, you know, this is what it’s all about, you know, which is, and just Nicole Kimba, moody Cindy, and there, their [01:54:00] teams, which are small teams moving mountains, uh, you know, uh, as I was sharing at the end, you know, as someone who’s been in a, in a fairly big company for a number of years, um, to have the opportunity to meet innovators like this, it’s just incredible.

    And, and all four of you, all four of them were winners. And I am very confident are going to have very successful businesses. I’m looking forward to connecting with them. Um, in the case of Cindy, uh, just, you know, I just, as you heard before, I just have a tremendous amount of passion for, um, you know, helping individuals, helping women thrive, um, as they age and not feel like they’re fixing something broken.

    So I just think that this is an incredible opportunity to help millions of women, um, uh, have dignity and confidence in all aspects of their lives. So it was outstanding by everyone. [01:55:00] Um, and I just, I just, yeah, the emotion, I mean, I can’t even imagine I’m personally humbled. I cannot even imagine what it’s like these days.

    Um, to create a business from scratch, fight for capital in this market and make things happen. So all four of you, I just find tremendously impressive. Yeah. And Cindy, we’ve been talking about you for the last five minutes. You never had an opportunity really to express yourself through it ended so fast.

    Any thoughts, anything you want to share with all of us now? Um, just thanks in gratitude. Thank you for caring about women’s bladders. Um, you know, through this crazy journey of mine, I have met so many women who were hurting and to think that my product helped them. Um, and to think that partnering with Proctor and gamble will be able to help so many more women.

    I’m sorry, I’m getting carried away here, but, um, I got, I started lady patch to [01:56:00] help, to help women. And we can do that now on a large scale. That’s huge. I’m very grateful.

    Well, I’m grateful to have met you Cindy, and to be able to partner with you. I just think it’s, it’s incredibly inspiring what you’re doing and you know, I have to say that you can feel the family coming through and, and everything that you’re doing. Wow. It is an honor. It is a privilege. Thank you guys so much.

    No, that’s great. And, uh, we, we do want to hear from the other three contestants as well, Kimba, we sort of go around round Robin. You’re on the you’re next on the, on the list. I mean, I really have to say like every one of these presentations are investible companies. Uh, I’m sorry, we’ve been getting back channeled by the way, um, with, uh, investors [01:57:00] who are interested in your companies, um, and SoCal, hopefully we’ll be able to make those connections, uh, to you, but every company was unbelievable.

    The presentations were very well done. World-class Kemba. Any thoughts? Thanks. So, Michelle, thank you so much for having me, for having us, uh, startup club has been amazing, uh, and just being a part of this, but, um, yeah, you know, we. We’re talking sort of in the green room, amongst ourselves as entrepreneurs.

    And most of us who’ve been in the market for, or, you know, running these businesses for about four years, including myself. Um, and, uh, we are actually going to be making a pretty big announcement, uh, as far as, um, raising around of capital’s concerned in the next few days here. So we’re really excited about just the exposure and the continued interest in what Kusha is doing and, um, and how we’re trying to minimize the risk to women, uh, as they’re trying to manage their everyday health and hygiene.

    So it’s, it’s [01:58:00] just been a phenomenal journey and we’ve got a ton of momentum and, you know, we’re happy to have started club be a part of that. So thanks again. Awesome. You know, I, I have to say Cindy and Kemba, like you really took an area that’s hard to talk about publicly. Like I really admire you. It’s, it’s just amazing what you’re doing.

    So I I’m, I’m looking, I know we all are looking to all of your success. So next on the stage we have moody moody. Like I have to say, I mean, for me, your product is, is just like, I know I waste food. I mean, it’s embarrassing to say, but it happens. Right? So like, how did it feel to be able to. I’m going to say, because I didn’t know about your product, right.

    I’m sure many others. How did it feel to be able to really get up on the stage and announced to the world that you have this really cool invention? [01:59:00] That is a game changer. Yeah. Thank you, Michelle. And, uh, really it’s, it’s hard to put into words. Um, I think first and foremost, want to sincerely thank P and G for, um, for selecting us as a, as a finalist, um, which is really validation to the tremendous amount of work that the team has been putting in over the last four and a half years to get us to where we are today.

    So thank you so much guys, and we’re really excited for what’s to come. Um, and just having this, uh, this opportunity is, is humbling in a lot of ways, um, and to be a finalist amongst truly inspiring, um, founders and companies, uh, like the ones with canvas and then Nicole was, uh, was really humbling in a lot of ways.

    And I think PNG absolutely nailed it by, by selecting, uh Cindia as the winner, but, you know, as we’ve said over and over again, as cliche as it is, you know, all, all four companies are winners in a big [02:00:00] way to just even have this opportunity to begin with. Um, so we’re very excited for what’s to come as noted, um, on the B2B side of things, this technology is a no brainer.

    Um, we have the. To pick up the phone and call any of these customers that you saw on those slides, you know, the likes of Walmart and mission produce and some of the larger distributors and retailers in the world. Um, but on the consumer end, the potential of where this technology can go. And the fact that it addresses a problem that literally affects every single person, regardless of social class or economic class is, is amazing in of itself.

    And so we’re really excited to have this opportunity, um, to, uh, to showcase the technology and to start having people pay attention to it. Awesome. Thank you. And Nicole, like, I can just imagine buying your product like right away. Like it just sounded amazing and I can’t [02:01:00] even begin to fathom how it actually works, but my gosh, how did it feel to be able to pitch to Proctor and gamble and the world what you’re doing with this very cool technology.

    Thanks, Michelle. Thanks for being here. It’s been an amazing experience. You know, I got into science because I wanted to help people and make products for people and it is the most meaningful thing. And I’m sure all the entrepreneurs here will say this. When a customer emails, you and tells you how your products solve their problems.

    And it’s so incredibly meaningful. So to be able to get the product out there into more people’s hands, I think is exactly where we’re at right now. And we are so excited to do that, to reach more people. We really think that Proctor and gamble has that brand and marketing [02:02:00] experience help us launch so many more products.

    We were so excited for the future and all the other areas we can go into

    guy. I’d love to hear from you how it feels to be able to bring this competition. Let’s just say to the world, and what are your future plans for the competition? Ours? So a couple of things, the first one is our main objective. I mean, obviously we have our finalists and the winner and everything, but our main objective is to create this new avenue for partnerships and capital and support for entrepreneurs beyond the traditional VC markets, which has happened in the past.

    So, um, being a leader in providing. Company support, whether investment capital, partnership, resources, um, so that we have more of an inside out best of both worlds model model. So that entrepreneurs don’t only have to rely on [02:03:00] and startups don’t only have to rely on the external capital markets to be able to raise money.

    They can actually potentially solve a lot of their needs and create even bigger businesses, uh, with companies like ours. So that’s the main objective and to do it, we felt like playing a leadership voice here. We need to have challenges like this, um, get tremendous visibility. Um, I mentioning it in every immediate opportunity.

    I can that this is about the entrepreneurs and startups and not about P and G. Um, and hopefully it is bringing a lot of visibility. A lot of times we even make connections between different startups and between different founders, where we think that they will have a great chance to connect. And there have been some cases where we license out our technologies to, uh, startups and other companies, because we think that they might actually have brands that make more sense.

    So it’s just another part of the ecosystem, which we think can really help. So that’s the first thing, um, point I wanted to make on your question, Michelle, the second thing I wanted to share is that just to [02:04:00] echo something Kim had said, um, Kimba, moody, and Nicole have right now, a lot of momentum and. Um, Cindy is creating momentum and I know that everybody’s in the mode of creating momentum, but, um, there’s also a dynamic here where we really like to see where’s the best fit for us at this time.

    And on your question about next steps, um, we, we would love to engage with, um, all four of you, uh, to see where our fits might be, you know, both for you and for us. Uh, it could be that you actually, at this point, you know, you’re feeling good and you don’t really need a lot of support or help from us, or you’re not interested in a partnership.

    Um, but it’s more like advice and both on both sides or the second one is you might say, Hey, actually we do want a partner. So this is the we’re hoping this is the beginning of, uh, discussions between us. Um, and the third thing that I wanted to share is that it’s a, [02:05:00] it’s a long and winding road on this stuff.

    As you guys are startup leaders and entrepreneurs know much more than I do. So we, we oftentimes see lots of pivots and that’s another reason why we want to stay closely connected because there could be some unexpected connections that we make that we hadn’t discovered before. There was a couple of cases where there’s some channels where, um, we have felt with entrepreneurs that it makes more sense for us to lead and other channels for entrepreneurs to lead and distribution and marketing support.

    And there’s been some cases where some R and D and manufacturing know how that we can provide will help solve some productions. That entrepreneurs have had. So just giving two examples. So w we’d like this to be the beginning, not the end, the whole point of this was visibility and support for entrepreneurs, not simply to pick one winner.

    And third is I think, um, everybody has a lot of momentum and we just like to be a part of it if we can. Wow. That’s amazing. [02:06:00] I’m like, I’m so impressed right now with the Proctor and gamble studio and everyone who is in that competition, that’s really priceless. Thanks for sharing that guy. I would like, you know, we are, um, clubhouse we’re at clubhouse people on clubbers.

    We’d like to share with authentic, you know, there’s a process that all the four of you went through and I’m just curious. Um, what is sort of the one lesson you, you learned about doing a pitch that you could share with the community starting with you Kimba? Sure. So, um, I oftentimes think that I have a bit of an advantage because I’ve been, I’ve been pitching for a long time, um, as a black woman startup, uh, oftentimes it’s very hard to find capital resources.

    Um, I think just the startups in general, but, um, in, in, during your journey, we, we couldn’t get traditional bank loans, blah, blah, blah. And so one of the [02:07:00] things that I did start in. Uh, back in 2018 was go on the road to do pitches. Uh, and so what I’ve learned over the journey of pitching is that, um, you know, people love to see passion.

    People want to know that you are the subject matter experts. And, uh, they’re also looking for an opportunity to be a part of something that could be the next big thing. And so really getting them to understand sort of what’s next, uh, you know, creates a bit of FOMO and, uh, and people want to jump in and, and be a part of the story.

    You know, everybody wants to be a part of something amazing. And so, you know, I think there’s been no difference with the PNG venture studio competition. Um, and then on the other end, you get to network and meet so many other folks who have now become part of my own network as we sort of build together and support each other.

    So, uh, so yeah, it’s just that to me is what I’ve always taken away from pitch competitions and, um, and I’m excited to again, be part of a new [02:08:00] network. So thanks Colin. Yeah. And we’ll go to moody you’re up next? Sure. Colony a great question. Thank you. Um, so a few things come to mind. The first is, um, uh, every pitch is a little bit different, you know, depending on the time that you have on who you’re pitching to and what information they’re looking for.

    Um, so the, the pitches can, can vary slightly, but at the end of the day, I think it just comes down to. Two things. One of which Kimba mentioned the first is passion. I think that’s absolutely critical that you’re truly passionate about what you’re doing and that that comes through in your pitch. The second would be to keep the message simple.

    And the third is to connect with your audience on an emotional level. And we’re really blessed and lucky with the right labs and sticks fresh because we are addressing a problem that resonates with every single person. Um, and, um, you know, uh, I’ve been quite lucky as, um, an [02:09:00] engineer by training and coming from the medical device industry and biotech industry before working on this that, um, I’ve always had an opportunity to work on impactful technologies.

    Uh, and when you’re pitching a technology like this, that can change people’s lives, um, it’s, it’s truly special. Uh, and just keeping the message simple and, um, showcasing your passion about what you’re doing will go a long way.

    Cindy. Yeah. Um, you know, I don’t have any experience in pitching, right. So, so like you went through this process, what, what did you learn from it? Like what did you pull from it? You know, I learned to get out of my own head. I learned to remember that lady patches, not about me. I learned that, you know, focusing on.

    Focusing on the women that haven’t heard about us yet, they needed me to, you know, to, to [02:10:00] clearly tell what lady patches about, speak from my heart and know that you know, that you have something people need and you just have to find those people. Um, and so through this process, you know, I just, I learned to just get out of my own head and focus on focus on my, on my consumers, on my customers.

    Yeah. It’s been a great, it’s been a great little journey here. Well, that’s, that’s awesome. Uh, we been great watching you too. We really enjoyed the presentation, Nicole, where do we, uh, I don’t we get into call yet. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, everybody’s given some really amazing comments. I don’t know how many things I have to add.

    Maybe, you know, for us, it’s a lot about communicating simplicity of, of what, what we’re doing. And, you know, as Cindy [02:11:00] mentioned, like reaching those people that you can help and the best way to do that, the simplest way to do that. Um, you know, but when you do have a mission and there’s people that, you know, you can help, it does make the pitch easier.

    Um, in some ways. It’s it’s like a discussion that you’re having with someone, you know, that you’re sitting across the room with and you’re trying to tell them, you know, Hey, this is so amazing. Look what we can do now and look what else we can do. And, you know, you try to connect with people and, yeah.

    Awesome. Kemba. I’m not sure. Did you go on that question? Okay. I did. Awesome. Thank you though, Michelle. You know what? I have a quick question for you guys. I just realized that start-up club is you guys have a workspace in Fort Lauderdale. You mentioned. Can you talk a little bit about actually yes, I saw you’re in lake worth.[02:12:00] 

    We’re here near downtown Fort Lauderdale and what is called fat village. And, you know, we take startups in, um, and they get the, hopefully the advantage and the benefit from being able to network and talk to people, run ideas past them, even, even, um, maybe get a mentor. Awesome. So I look forward to meeting you guys one day, I’m right up the road.

    We would love to meet the other one you want to look at is the Allen Levann center. They just went online about two months ago and they put over 15, $20 million into it, this facility, um, a lot of donations and they are bringing in hundreds of companies into it, global exposure. It’s it’s, it’s a, it’s a really phenomenal.

    Infrastructure they’ve built and systems and they do cohorts. Um, they, they they’ve really connected well, so that’s might be a little closer to you as well. Um, and not as specialized, but I think that anyone [02:13:00] in the audience here today, and we talked about that during the session is that if you are, you have an idea and you want to take it forward, getting yourself into the right environment and surrounding yourself with people who can help you.

    That can make a big difference. I love it. Thanks Khan. What did you say the name was Alan Levann centuries could Google the Alan Levann center and just, just go for a tour, the love to do a tour and let them know. You just went through the P and G challenge and they would just, they would just really connect well with you.

    I know that. I love it. Thank you so much. We’ve got to get you to S if you don’t, if you don’t come in, we’re going to have to get you to speak there as well then. So be you’d be a phenomenal speaker. I appreciate it. Listen, I’m down for whatever. Let’s get it. Absolutely. So another question for the folks here on the stage.

    If somebody in the audience, we have an audience here. If somebody in the audience has an idea, they’ve invented something, what would you give [02:14:00] them as advice? Like what is the first thing that they should do to get the ball rolling? Moody.

    Wow. That’s a, that’s a great question. I would, the first thing that comes to mind is what is the problem that you’re solving? Um, a lot of times people, you know, as Colin mentioned on, on the talk there before the winner was announced, there was a lot of really great ideas out there. Um, but really, um, finding the problem first and then developing an idea or a solution to that problem is, is the best way to go about it.

    A lot of times, surprisingly enough, across all industries, what you’ll find is someone comes up with a great idea and then tries to look for the problem for which it’s solving or which, or a problem that that idea can solve, which I think is a little bit backwards. Um, the other thing that really comes to [02:15:00] mind is, okay, let’s assume now that you have an amazing idea that solves a significant problem that truly does not have a solution.

    What you want to do is really surround yourself with a team that compliments each other’s weaknesses and strengths. Um, the team is absolutely critical to the success of any company, any startup, and bringing that idea to reality. Thank you. Great advice. So say. So if I have an idea, literally, what is the first thing you would tell me to do?

    Keep it secret, depending if you can get, you know, um, if you, depending on what the, the, the solution is, you need to keep it very private. Don’t tell a lot of people need to tell people you can trust. Um, if you can patent your idea, if you can get some kind of, you know, IP protection, [02:16:00] you know, try to go down that route.

    Um, and then be very, very selective in who you tell about your idea. And until you can open up, you know, to the public, but definitely, definitely, um, keeping, keeping your idea very private, and then when you’re ready to come out, then you can come out and only, you know, when that is. So, yeah. Um, and also when you’re building a team, um, hold people true to, to what they’re promising you, that they’re going to do for you.

    Um, some people will try to, you know, just take what they can get, but you have to really kind of hold people to, to what, to their word. Yeah. It’s very challenging for a startup. Um, because you have this idea, you want to vet the idea with people around you or others or experts you want to make the idea of.

    Sharper and faster, [02:17:00] quicker, and you know, more efficient, whatever it is. And yet at the same time, you want to keep that to yourself. Is there a right balance between the two there that you’ve thought about? Yeah, it, uh, you know, for lady patch, we had our challenges. It was, you know, until we got patent protection, we didn’t tell anybody it was very, very difficult.

    Um, but you know, we, we had to find the right people and, you know, you know, for my particular solution, you’re not going to look to a pediatrician to help you along your journey. You really need to narrow it down to someone who’s an expert in there in this particular field. And that happened to be, you know, urogynecologists.

    And so until we have patent protection, you know, we didn’t open it up and, uh, and start talking to people until we had that. So yeah, it is, you have to find the balance and you really have to trust your gut. You really have to trust your gut with who you can trust. Yeah. [02:18:00] Agreed. Nicole, what should I do? I have an idea?

    What is the first thing? The very first thing I should do.

    I mean, I think moody brought up a great point. Where is there a need? Is there a problem. That you can use this idea on and are there people that really need that and want it? Um, so, you know, really, is it, is it a painful problem? Um, because those are the places where you can make the most difference. Um, and also I think a little bit different in just different perspective on it.

    You know, we did communicating what we were doing and what we were, what we were working on for us was important. Um, and we had a trusted group of people we could talk to, and I’m lucky to have really great, amazing mentors and advisors, um, on our team [02:19:00] and, um, you know, communicating what was going on and where we were at and, you know, the planning kind of what the next steps were.

    So for us, it was like, it was a lot of discussion in the beginning. Um, and that communication piece was important to, you know, the next steps forward. Excellent. I’m hearing a theme here and idea where there is a problem and trusted, highly trusted advisors. Thank you, CAMBA. I’m jumping on, you know, I agree with, with what moody and the call echoed as it related to understanding of the problem.

    But if I were to add anything to what everyone else has shared, I would say first, it’s really important to understand your own, why I was working a corporate gig [02:20:00] for many, many years. I started a company years ago, uh, exited that and then started this new company. Uh, and so you really have to understand what do you want with, from this idea?

    Are you looking to leave a legacy for your kids and your family? Are you looking to exit big? Are you looking to be yachting and Santo pay? That’s just clearly a bucket list thing of mine, but understand your why? Because I think if you really are honest with yourself about what you want from this idea of yours, cause it’s one thing to sell it to friends and be like a pig in mud, super happy.

    And it’s another thing to really try to go global, right? To start hitting continents, to, to really put in the work of, of being, you know, one of the best of the best in that category. So if you’re honest with yourself and, and, and understand why you’re doing it, I think that will really inform your next steps.

    Um, I think those, the second thing I did was find. Mentors, right. Accelerators are an [02:21:00] amazing place to get started when you’re basically faced with, I have an idea what’s next. They are filled with people who have supported other people who are doing the same things that you’re doing, which is trying to take a dream, uh, and moving forward with it.

    And so don’t recreate the wheel, find incubators accelerators networks that can help you move your dream forward. Um, and then I think lastly, what, what ended up happening is that, you know, we realized later after the fact how big the market was. So I think it’s also important to know if you can, early on how big is this market, because your dream and what you think it might be, might not match the market opportunity.

    And so those two things really have to sort of align in order for you to, to get to where you want to go. And, and it doesn’t matter if you want to get to the corner, if you want to get to down the street or if you want to get across the world. Um, but again, being honest with yourself, finding the right people who can guide you and then being really clear about how far you can take the stream and then being unapologetic about chasing it, [02:22:00] period, and a story.

    This is it, you know, no-holds-barred so, so that’s what I would add. Awesome. Brutal and relentless. Yeah. There you go. That’s your thing, Michelle. I know it. I love it guy. Obviously. You’re, you’re kind of the king of this, right. You’re mentoring and you’re discovering these really cool folks that are inventors.

    What is your suggestion? For our audience here. So I have so many, I’ve made so many mistakes in this area and have so many failures to share that it would take way too long, but I’m going to tell you my biggest one is, um, so I I’ve lived, I’ve had the honor of living on four continents with PNG, uh, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the U S and this is my third assignment back in my home market here in the U S and each time I went into a new market, um, as a, as an outsider, I would have to learn a lot about the local [02:23:00] culture, languages, norms, um, everything from macroeconomic issues, market issues in Latin America, to culture and China, to different country dynamics in Europe.

    And it was always, I found it very tough for me to innovate when I did not understand the local consumer and the local market really well. So cut to your question. Um, our hit rate on new brands is far lower than supporting existing brands with new innovations, uh, new brand, our new brand. I mean, the market new brand hit rate, I believe is around 5% or 3%, so it’s pretty low.

    Um, and so we all share that pain where, where I have failed. It’s when I thought my level of consumer depth and understanding was strong enough and it in the end was not. And it’s incredible how much, I mean, we are still learning about tied to. And we’ve been in that business for a hundred years and there’s no, um, it’s the, it’s the easiest thing to do, which is just [02:24:00] spend brutal, countless number of hours with consumers, observing them, learning from them, seeing their frustrations, um, going to the store with them, being in their homes and understanding what the pain points are and how the product is working.

    And it’s incredible how you can find, um, the amount of serendipity and make an unexpected connections to make your product better. I think the number of pivots that need to happen on a product before it’s truly ready for prime time and to crack that 5% or whatever it is hit, right. Um, it can be infinite.

    So, you know, w when you have an idea, uh, and I think the accountability point is very important, um, but just spending relentless number of hours with consumers and slogging it out until you feel like you’ve made enough pivots where your product really has irresistible superiority. And we today, I mean, we learn and relearn that are the biggest differentiator is the level of consumer understanding and how that’s translated into irresistible superiority so [02:25:00] that he or she, or they really wants to come back and pay that money again, for the repeat, I think repeat rate is much more important than trial as it relates to new brands and new products, especially with word of mouth and, um, DTC becoming so much.

    We couldn’t agree more. You said it so well, guy, um, totally agree about the trial versus the repeat. So that’s some amazing advice. It’s been an amazing two hours hearing everyone’s pitch, um, getting judges input as well on your pitch was invaluable. So we’ve come to the end of our after show. We want to thank all the members that are on in the club here, as well as those on the stage, but don’t forget, it’s not over yet.

    We have three more rooms to bring you in collaboration with Procter and gamble to keep up the learning and the connecting and the growing. So [02:26:00] the next one up is today as 6:00 PM Eastern time, we have some prior year finalists that are going to be on startup lessons from the edge. And the topic is from desperation to success.

    These are some mazing stories, a gentleman that was basically on the verge of death and what he invented from that. And after that tomorrow we have the two final shows. One is at 2:00 PM Eastern time, which is the top inventors share what it takes to succeed, and that’s going to be on our serial entrepreneur club.

    So we’re going to get some amazing advice from folks on the stage, as well as past final. And last but not least on Friday, we have at 6:00 PM getting funding for personal or taboo products. We heard a lot of those types of pitches today with lady patch and with canvas, um, hygiene products. Um, we’re going to like drill down [02:27:00] to how do you go into market?

    How do you talk to investors? How do you get funding when your product is something that people generally feel uncomfortable about talking? So thank you again to everyone who joined. Um, you can get our full schedule@wwwdotstartup.club forward slash C E S 2022. And you can also join our email list where you can get email alerts.

    Thank you again, guy moody, Kemba, Nicole and Cindy. And of course calling back to you. No, this has been awesome. And I, and I, and I really like that the community has come together and that every one of you were able to share your time and help other aspiring entrepreneurs. Thank you very much and see you on the next show.

    Thank you. Thank you. Well, take care of.[02:28:00] 

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