Concept to Creation, Chapter 4: Divide and Conquer

Between NSF I-Corps and AccelerateRU, we finally had enough funding to do the thing every early company is desperate to do: real R&D. For the first time, the science behind Plus Pouch had room to breathe. But funding a lab is not the same as building a business, and we knew it. Money buys you the chance to develop a product. It does not hand you a market, a network, or proof that anyone outside your own four walls believes in what you are doing.

So we went looking for opportunities. And October turned out to be the month that set the standard for how we operate as a team.

By the end of the month we were staring at two opportunities that landed on top of each other. We had made the Top 25 for CEO Global, which meant a trip to Tampa to compete. At the same time, we had a seat at Cooper Medical School's SDOH Challenge, in front of a room full of medical professionals. Two stages. Two cities. One small team. Most people would have picked one. We picked both. I headed to Tampa while Zachariah Carcanague and Ryan Wilkinson took the Cooper stage. It was the first real test of our ability to split up, trust each other, and still show up sharp on two fronts at once.

Tampa was a seven minute semifinals pitch, and seven minutes goes fast when you are trying to explain a whole company. What made this trip matter was not the clock. It was the feedback. This was the first time since the very beginning of Plus Pouch that we got real, outside input on how we actually pitch. Not from friends, not from people rooting for us, but from judges and operators who had no reason to be polite. That kind of honest read on your delivery, your story, and your gaps is hard to put a price on, and it sharpened how we tell our story going forward.

I came up short of the finals. The semifinals was where my run ended. But I did not leave empty handed. The connections I made on that trip became real additions to our network, the kind of relationships that keep paying off long after the scoreboard is forgotten. Losing a round and growing your network in the same week is a trade I will take every time.

While I was in Tampa, Zac and Ryan were on the Cooper Medical School stage, pitching to an audience of medical professionals. Different room, different language, different way of evaluating what we are building. They brought home second place. That result did more than look good. It opened a door. The finish earned us an invitation to speak at the DVHIMSS conference in Atlantic City, putting us in front of an even bigger healthcare audience.

Just as important, running both events at once gave us something we could not get from a single stage: a read on our own positioning. Tampa tested us in a general business and investor setting. Cooper tested us in front of a medical crowd. Watching how each set of judges responded helped us start answering one of the biggest questions in front of us, whether leaning more medical or more athletic is the stronger path for the company. We are not done answering it, but October gave us real signal instead of guesswork.

Two stages, two cities, one team that refused to choose. That is the standard we set in October, and it is the one we are carrying forward. Follow along with our journey.