WE WERE REGIONAL FINALISTS IN THIS YEAR'S TIE WOMEN COMPETITION
So we did NOT win the TiE Dubai Tie Women pitch deck competition held last Sept 16. 🥴 When you've had two straight wins (from ALDAR and Majid Al Futtaim ) in these types of competitions, you simply expect you'll win again. Simply.😁 But then you don't and it's disappointing for about two hours, especially when you have to break the news to your team. As I slept that night though, still I said alhamdulillah.
In the light of a new morning, not winning all made sense and everything was exciting again.
The winner of the competition was Veristyle - an AI-powered app that helps people choose their wardrobe, like a personal stylist and its founder will go on to present in the Expand NorthStar in Gitex Dubai, then in Bangalore, to compete presumably with other tech-driven start-ups.
Lessons Iman took home from this experience: 1. Analyze the competition you are entering to manage your own expectations. Who better to represent in a tech-event like Gitex but a tech-driven business. Luchie Suguitan and I presented as a retail, brick and mortar business looking for funding. We didn't even mentioned our ecommerce! We may have been short-listed, but maybe if we studied the nature of the competition, we could have angled differently.
So Lesson no. 1: Know your battlefield well before you enter the fight.
2. I submitted ppt and answered questionnaires in June, and I did it, on hindsight with some hubris. I answered the questions as best as I can, and then forgot all about it. We did not even review other documents we submitted but just rehearsed the ppt the morning of the competition. So when the judge asked us the first question, we could not understand what he was talking about and we looked incompetent. Luchie did not know what I submitted and it was after some time (which is too late!) that I realized the judge was referring to numbers I submitted in June; stuff that had no connection to the ppt we were presenting.
Lesson no. 2: Confidence is one, overconfidence is another.
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Lesson no. 3: Study your weapons well before engaging in battle.
3. Lesson no. 4 - do not take tech for granted. AI, apps, VR, software, ecommerce, this is what investors are keen to invest in. Majority of the other businesses were tech. Only three of ten finalists had actual tangible products to sell. How are we evolving as a business to be ready for this? How are we taking advantage of technology to power our FnB business?
4. Several people asked for my business cards after the presentation and I met dear friends and fellow entrepreneurs Anna Krejca of Ithara.ae and Pam Durant of DiapointME . They are two passionate entrepreneurs whom I am rooting for and have been doing business with.
So finally, Lesson no. 5: Join again another competition because there is much to gain even with the joining. I'm sure there'll be other competitions and I should be personally bookmarking this post because as JnJ founder once said: "our greatest assets are our mistakes." 