Promofy journey to winning GITA Matching Grant

A few weeks ago, our startup was selected for the GITA Matching Grant. Even though it's a step towards accelerating our startup, the path to victory was long and not easy.

?So here is not a small review of what really happened and how our journey went.

?First of all, it started on July 20th when I registered on the grants platform and started filling simple application, where we had to write information about what our startup did, with challenging constraints on each question with maximum letters, this was the first time we stumbled upon the challenge of simplifying and compressing information about what we did.

after filling in the application, there was dead silence for almost 1 month, at some time we even forgot that we had filled it out, but on a certain evening on 14 august, this picture was posted on GITA Facebook page

I don't have a Facebook app, so Tatia our Product owner wrote to me in Slack and congratulated me, and before we knew it we were selected in 150 startups out of 495. We were 149 on the list it was a little bit confusing, but we went with it, at least we made it to 150, btw we found out that there was no hierarchy in this list.

here the real “fun” part begins, there was an informational meeting with all startup representatives and 2 training sessions in Techpark, where startup founders, associates, and professionals trained us for a few days in order to get ready for the interview process with international coaches.

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Before the interview, we had to fill in a new application that was even bigger and more detailed, which took 3 different iterations and little arguing between founders about what we had to keep in the application, as far as there were constraints here as well on the number of letters used.

After completing the application, we were appointed for online interviews with coaches, During which all founders were present, I don’t know why but our startup had difficulty with the date and time of the interview, organizers planned the interview for Monday, then wrote to us that it was re-scheduled and on Monday evening called to ask why we were late, but after few e-mail exchanges we managed to clarify their intentions and have a proper online interview with judges sorted out.

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the interview part was hard, we had just 10 minutes to impress judges unfamiliar with us and our startup. Despite being truly prepared, with all co-founders present and everything going smoothly, it took at least 4 minutes to explain what we did with the judges, and I had a feeling that we didn’t make an impression on the judges. we held a discussion after the call about how it went, all three of us were not impressed as far as we thought that we could do it better, and doubts crept in about whether we made it to the next round.

However few days later, we received a call confirming our selection for the finals, making it through among 50 startups and this post was shared on GITA's Facebook page.

With this call, we also got information that there was a 5-day training planned for the preparation of the demo day.

Unfortunately, I was not in the city and had to go back soon,

fortunately, my co-founders were there to step up for the first days, We were excited and prepared for the training, but during it, we once again, realized it was challenging to explain our startup in 3 minutes to people with different backgrounds and experiences.

We also lacked the story of how we are turning our passion and market problem into a million-dollar opportunity and had to miss 2 training days due to a big live event happening here in Georgia where we had to be present.

Even though we had already gone through many pitches with angel investors and some VC funds, on our last day of training where I had to pitch in front of coaches, they didn't hold back from criticism and harsh feedback.

to be honest my pitch was roasted so much in front of fellow 50 startup founders that I couldn't talk for a whole day, pondering what to do.

But there was one great recommendation that I caught and tried to utilize: "Delete 90% of the content, not even everything, and start over."?

This was hard to comprehend but necessary to hear before the real final-day pitch.

I remember coming out of the room of judges thinking about what went so wrong, also before pitching I asked my fellow startup founder to film my pitch so I could review it (Btw I was hesitant for a whole day to even to the recording)

So after this terrible demo day pitch session, I had four days to submit a new pitch and prepare a speech for the final day.

The fun fact was that co-founders were traveling internationally, and we had a time 9-hour time difference during these four days. However, what we did was start from a blank, open Canva presentation, with one rule: not to use anything from our previous pitch.

As we progressed through our pitch deck, we hit a creative block where we couldn't move any further, and whatever we did, we didn't like and it led to arguing.

?This was the moment of realization for us that we needed to stop doing it and recharge, refresh, and get advice.

The good and bad thing about the Georgian startup ecosystem is that it's small, and fortunately, I know many founders of wonderful startups. Every founder I know will go out of their way to help another founder, as they know the challenges we face on a daily basis. So, I contacted a few that has already gone through the GITA program and asked them to give me feedback on our pitch.

?Of course, they agreed, and suddenly I had four new coaches giving me feedback, some of which were well-utilized, but some were not applicable. So we filtered through the awesome feedback we received and updated the pitch deck and in Semi-Georgian style, two hours before the deadline to submit the pitch.

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Then there was one day left before the pitch, and this was one of the hardest days for me. I started practicing the pitch, I suddenly realized that the pitch was one minute longer than I anticipated, and I needed to trim and practice the new pitch in just one day.

Unfortunately, my co-founders were not with me and in a different timezone and they could not support me because as I was waking up in the morning, they were going to sleep.

We had daily asynchronous meetings that helped a bit, but Superstar was one of my friends who volunteered to be my mentor, traveled to Telavi (the city where the final pitch was located), and probably, by the end of the day, heard my pitch a thousand times. As we progressed together, we trimmed the pitch down and to the requested 3 minutes and practiced even while eating breakfast, driving, waiting in the lobby, etc you get the idea.

here is an image of my cool setup for practice :)

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Alternatively, this was the time when we were researching all possible questions from the previous round of GITA and our experience, to be prepared for all possible questions asked by judges and had a list of 22 questions I might be asked and answers (90% was a total waste of time but I was overprepared for questions).

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When the day of the pitch came, I arrived 1 hour before the requested time, and the situation on-site was quite welcoming. All fellow startups were practicing and cheering beside the competition for each other.

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Also while waiting I was asked to have a small interview and photo taken, in an interview one of the questions was “What are your odds of winnings”, I remember being so on answering these questions in the most mathematical way possible saying it just 40% and not saying anything else.

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I was lucky enough to have fellow startups cheering and hyping me up before the pitch my internal hype could be seen when I entered the room, I had to stand in a specific place that was marked with an X, in this small clip you can see me doing a little superhero landing because of the hype :).

?Deadpool would be proud

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The pitch went well; I was controlling the time and not thinking about the words that were coming out as far as I concentrated on the main concept I wanted to deliver.

The good part was that practice helped me to finish the pitch exactly at the 3-minute mark. I even mentioned that the future is gamified, one of our core values on the last second, and a 10-minute question session started.

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From the questions, I quickly understood, even though I thought I did a good job of simplifying our idea, that I missed several key points. But judges quickly caught on with the right questions, great suggestions, and from my point of view, a few creative on-the-spot answers, like how our platform can be utilized to quickly build a quiz for Zaza Pachulia or a Daily Login Promotion idea for the Glovo App where users have to find puzzle pieces on daily bases to get a discount coupons (still asking myself why I didn't think of this type of usages of our product before going in).

One thing stood out during the question session; instead of 10 minutes, an additional 3 minutes were added (I was not sure it was good by that time, still not sure now :)))

and the feeling of freedom from all the stress and anticipation just went away as soon as I stepped out of that room, I was shocked at how calm I was,

but I had a 2-hour drive back to Tbilisi 2 hours to decipher every judge's question and my answer, and another 2 days to wait for the final answer,

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well, these days went by in an instant, the good thing is that I have already taught myself after meeting 100+ investors and VCs that I should not anticipate anything, the floor is lava when you are a startup founder in our country trying to break through the world, so no hope was there for me to win and overworking in this 2 days helped as well.

?So ?the day of the announcement came, and it was time to go back to Telavi, I went alone this time, mostly because I didn't know about reactions I would have in case of the win or lose,

well, I arrived 3 hours before the official start and 4 hours before the real start.

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The final ceremony was hosted in one of my favorite hotels in the Kakheti region - Tsinandali Radisson collection, the anticipation was quite nervous but fortunately, I found an investor of ours attending as well and had a long conversation about business, and future, technology, and the situation in our country, this helped so much that time flew in an instant, during the wait time one of the judges was Zaza Pachulia which i really wanted to talk with but we were prohibited to speak with judges until the end of the ceremony.

and the ceremony started, that was the moment I could not stop being nervous, the announcement of the winning startups is one of the hardest things, you are waiting with 50 startups to hear your startup name,

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each judge was announcing 5 startups, well, we were not in the first five startups announced, but it was time to announce the eighth winners, before naming our startup, I already guessed with words such as fixing engagement problem that judge Sacha Michaud was talking about Promofy, I was sitting in the back and quickly rushed to the scene, I wanted to take a photo with the check-in Promofy T-shirt and I was wearing one under the hoodie, but in that moment of rush forgot to take off the hoodie and the attached photo was born.

the sudden realization that hard work for the last 6 months and the hardest last 10 days had produced such a result was great, recognition from such experienced judges was exhilarating,

?first things first I shared the photo with our exceptional team and this was their reaction,

soon my wife called me to congratulate me, she was cheerful but crying and I was calming her down because I could cry with her at that moment and there were too many cameras around :)).

The post-announcement was quite chaotic, everybody was congratulating each other and supporting those who could not make it this year, one thing that I wanted to really do was to speak with all the judges, especially Zaza Pachulia who has been an inspiration for me while as I was playing basketball in my youth, but the crowd around them was too big, I was able to say some thanks to some of them but they were snatched away,

the drive back to Tbilisi in the dark was great, as I was driving lots of calls, and Check was sitting in the passenger chair.

We still have to host a celebration party but we decided that after the launch with the first client, we would combine a celebration party.

In the post-credit scene as Marvel loves it here are some advice and learnings I took away from GITA.

1.?? Forget anything you think you know.

2.?? Ego is your enemy, so please tame it.

3.?? It's okay to ask for outside help.

4.?? You can never be too prepared.

5.?? Be blunt and short.

6.?? Shorter.

7.?? Ask as many questions during the preparations as you can.

8.?? Practice, practice, practice, and when you think you have practiced enough, practice more.

9.?? Make it so that you can explain your startup to a friend, family member, or a 10-year-old kid.

10. Remember that nobody knows what you are building beside you.

11. arrive a day before your pitch If it's in a different city,?

In conclusion, the GITA journey, though challenging, has been transformative. The victory signifies not just a recognition of our startup but a testament to adaptability and the spirit of entrepreneurship.

I was quite hesitant to share this post hope u like it

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