Our AlphaLab interview
Last week was a really crazy week for me. First of all, I was trying to wrap up all the final details for Robot App, getting ready for our appstore submission. A lot of testing and a couple of hours spent on taking care of memory leaks. But most important of all was our AlphaLab interview. AlphaLab is a 20 weeks seed funding program/incubator for Tech Startups. They're based out of Pittsburgh. We were so excited when we got the email that we were selected to present our startup at AlphaLab. It was both excitement and a sudden rush of "Shit! We've so much stuff to do".
AlphaLab interviews are broken down into 15mins demo/presentation followed by another 15 mins of questions and answers. Since we already have a working product, not the full product, but version 1.0 of what we intend to build, we felt that we were slightly ahead of the game compared to other teams that were also selected to present. With the interview behind us now, I do feel that having an actual prototype/product will help a lot when you are trying to pitch a product.
Robot App, our first IPhone game, started as a collaborative project between Derek and I. We both had wanted to take the plunge and do something with the IPhone. With AlphaLab, what they're looking for is an idea or startup that has the potential of making it big. When we started, Robot app was just a game, but later Derek and I both felt that IPhone 3.0 presents a huge opportunity for mobile game developers, like ourselves, to develop mobile games that are uncoventional. We both felt that IPhone 3.0 has so much to offer as a mobile gaming platform, it's really up to one's imagination. That's why we decided to start LeftRight Studios. We know that LeftRight Studios is unique compared to other gaming studios because all our game ideas involve a set of core elements that we feel are really important in making a sucessive IPhone game. One such element is that of all our games involve a certain amount of social interaction.
Before the interview day
Our preparation for AlphaLab selection day started a day after we got the selection email. At that time, Robot App was in its final week of development and so that was helpful since we only need to spend time working on the presentation slides. Here's where the advantage of not being a solo founder is really helpful. I was all tied up with the last bit of development work and so Derek took upon the task to work on the presentation. We discussed the details of what we wanted to present and how we want to deliver the message that LeftRight Studios is not just another game studio.
I started my drive to meet up with Derek over weekend before the interview and arrived at Pittsburgh Saturday evening. On Sunday, it was my first time meeting Derek in person (we've just got to know each other back in March and have only been talking and collaborating online through emails/IM) and we continued working on the presentation at that point, we're almost 50% completed for presentation. On Monday, we finalized our presentation late at night and so that only left us with Tuesday morning to reherse our presentation.
Interview Day
We met up early on Tuesday, the day of our interview, and started rehearsing our presentation. We rehearsed everything that we had planned to present including the demo by actually doing it. I thought that by actually doing every step, including timing and coordination between Derek and myself, helped me a lot in prepping for the actual interview. Our interview was scheduled for 1:45pm and we left the house plenty early and got there 5 mins before the interview. We both felt that the timing was just nice since we didn't want to arrive too early and be sitting at the waiting area waiting, thinking about our presentation and getting ourselves all nerved up. Once we were inside AlphaLab, we were brought over to the waiting area and as weird as it sounds, the wait just felt longer compared to the actual pitch.
When it was time for us to present, we brought took our "gear" and MAC, walked into the meeting room and setup the projector. We were then introduced to the panel of judges who were key team members of AlphaLab/InnovationWorks as well as a few VCs from the Pittsburgh area. One advice that I would give to anyone whose pitching their idea, given that you have a product to demo, try to schedule that towards the beginning of your presentation. Here's why:
1) It helps to give the audience a better idea of what your product is before you dive deeper into your revenue/business model.
2) It's a great way to break the ice and helps in calming you down at the beginning of the pitch.
Our presentation had only 7 slides and we've staged the presentation in a way that we presented our product demo after the second slide. Our demo includes using an actual IPhone with Robot App installed as well as running the IPhone simulator over the projector. I felt that having the actual app working on an actual IPhone was the key factor in presenting our product. We continued with our presentation while the IPhone was going around the room. Again, I felt that the product demo did helped us to break the ice and as well as calming our nerves.
Before we knew it, we were on slide number 7 and then came the questions and answers. I would go much into the details of what the questions were, but some of the questions are typical questions that you should expect from any VCs like what is your pricing strategy, what's your plan for growing the company, etc. There wasn't a question that we did not have an answer for, and I feel that was largely due to the fact we've discussed and talked about smackBOTS, our vision for the company and future ideas for the company.
Final thoughts
We're really happy that everything went so well with our interview, we're also really thankful for the opportunity for presenting our startup to AlphaLab. I would also like to give a shout out to everyone who have helped Derek and myself throughout the entire application process. Doing the AlphaLab application and interview have definitely helped us evolved from an idea to a product and now a startup.
