Inaugural Startup Meeting

The inaugural meeting of our cohort in Startup.SC was a great. The other four teams have amazing idea, and of all five, Yumbev is the only without an MVP (minimum viable product). It is, in fact, the only company that is still at idea stage. It is also the only plan that, thus far, is an asset based company, although I can completely foresee that merging or morphing or transitioning into something different/better/who knows.
The project manager, Jason Greene, is a great guy, bringing with him years of military experience and discipline that startups truly need. In these early stages of a business, it is so easy to get distracted with the ten thousand or so to-do list items and the myriad of thoughts, ideas and doubts streaming in your subconscious. Jason is here to make sure that we stay on target.

Laid in front of us is two intense months of developing a pitch deck and a pitch, and a weekly meeting in which we will all have the lovely privileged of presenting both to our peers and invited guests. It is during these two months that we will stumble and stutter, be laughed at and laugh at others, be supportive and attack like a true devil's advocate. Much like boot camp, we are but privates in a small army of startups, with as much or even more naivety and bravado than a true army PFC. I fully anticipate in the coming weeks that this confidence and childlike enthusiasm and excitement will be beat into a well disciplined and professional pitch that will inspire even the most timid investor to consider.

At least that's the plan.

For now, however, we have a strict time line with clear and concise deliverables to attack.  For me and Yumbev, our next steps are to find and curate the team with whom we will grow this company into one of the larger companies in the country ... or give every drop of sweat trying.

Since I like laying ground work for any offensive (to continue with the military theme), one of my priorities is to develop a logo and identity, and eventually a landing page for this endeavor, so that I can then make business cards and begin to schedule meetings.  It is a difficult task, considering that I am not completely sure of what this beast will look like yet. Regardless, we'll hammer that out this week, at least a "Phase I Identity", knowing full well that this is not how it will look in a year or two.

Meetings are Tuesdays, so until then ... cheers.