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Wednesday, September 16, 2015

External Pitchin'


It is Wednesday and I'm 2 posts, many sleeps and 2 meals behind time. 

I've never been to a pitching session, so the external pitch was a great one for me to start with. It's a week and a half after that particular session and memory escapes me, but I'll try recapping on what interested me nevertheless.

PicktoLearn aims to be the next AirBnB that allows individuals to tap on connections to learn new skills - or so they write in the pitch. The idea is that you can connect yourself to an expert in a particular field, and likewise, someone can pick you to learn something from you. For example, if I very earnestly want to learn how to make Peranakan beadwork, I can easily pick someone skilled in that to learn from, on a 1-to-1 basis. The overall idea is cool as it tries to fix individuals with suitable and customizable courses, at more flexible prices too, but I don't think the planned execution would work. One thing is that the expertise of these people aren't certified (I could claim that I'm a pro in Peranakan cooking but who are you to know really), and another problem is that security is an issue - it could very well be a probable site for creeps and bad people to do bad stuff.

Planit was pitched by a teenager who has almost already polished his idea of an event platform app. Out of all the pitches, I felt that his idea was the most well thought of and had the most potential. The app is a platform for users to share events - either those that are private and between friends, or publicly published ones (like the USS Halloween Horror nights). In the internal pitching session, Prof Ben brought up a great point -  that it is easy to problem solve, but it is not easy to identify a great problem. This was exactly what I felt - that he had identified a problem in that it is difficult to consolidate events, and then came up with a solution.

Nom Affair is another student led initiative that aims to connect private food organisations with Instagrammers. I've always thought that Instagram was a great platform that has been largely tapped into by organisations and I do find it so - in fact we're in a time where I find organisations too domineering on Instagram, and that Instagram is losing its original flavour of being a photo sharing site. Nom Affair tries to find influencers who aren't just food bloggers, but those who delve into lifestyle, and then try to pair them up with the food companies. This is a great idea to use more related influencers to bring exposure to smaller and more organic entreprises, but I thought that in a world where marketing is borderline unethical (pay for likes/followers), and where food blogging is almost always unethical (ladyironchef's posts are almost always encouraging you to try something out because it's so delicious ), the idea might not be that feasible? Yet, despite these odds stacked against them, it seems that the idea has been validated by many, so I'd love to see how it goes.

Helphelp is a cool social idea, but I highly doubt its usability. I've spent the last few weeks doubting humanity in general, so given that past apps have failed even when they promised monetary benefits to users who help out, I really don't believe that people would be willing to go out of their ways to help others out of the goodness of their hearts.

For a more general takeaway - having a great idea is great, but having a useful idea is greater. Ideas are great, but practicality (or practicality from the execution of the idea) is better. Coming up with something new is great, but tweaking existing solutions to better fit current problems may be better. 

I've also been catching up on the other blogs and I like Anand's for having captured the essence and the art of pitching. I also like Vicky's for her argument on how only idealism isn't going to carry us far. It seems that the writers on Medium are doing very well!

(+ changed my font size due to recommendations + can't stop being distracted by the gif - it's beautiful and totally how I feel like right now)

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