From High School Science Fair to Venture Funded Business
MP Syndicate is LIVE + Cali Meetup + FL Memes
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In this issue:
How a kid in high school started a company that’s raised millions
Updates on Tether, Modern Picnic, and Copper Cow Coffee
Friends of The Pitch meetup in Cali
Phil Nadel shares how to save a startup
Episode Drop
Episode #112 Natrion: The Holy Grail of Battery Tech
Electric Vehicles could drive further, charge faster, cost less, and NOT catch on fire 🔥 with Natrion’s solid state battery component. Can Alex Kosyakov convince investors a kid in a lab coat may have created the Holy Grail?
Vol. 1 Issue 13
After we bought The Pitch back from Spotify last summer, Josh and I discussed the vision a lot.
I remember saying to Josh, “I want kids listening to this show.”
We envision The Pitch as a place for the next generation to learn and be inspired to start world-changing companies. But to do that they need to hear people like them pitching.
They need to hear it’s possible for “someone like you” to start a business and raise money.
So when a very young and slightly nervous Alex Kosyakov first pitched us his company, we knew we wanted him on the show.
Alex’s journey building Natrion started in high school. It was in chemistry class that he created his first patents. It was through Greenwich High School’s science research program that he was able to present his work at science fairs.
While some of the folks Alex met in high school thought of his work as “science fair experiments”, Alex knew that he could do more than just win a few awards. He believed the work he was doing could solve big problems… maybe even change the world.
Luckily, he met a few adults who agreed.
Like his chemistry teacher, Andrew Bramante, who helped Alex expand his experiments at the City College of New York.
And Ben Jen, a serial entrepreneur who also started building companies while he was a student. Ben eventually became Alex’s first investor and is an active advisor to this day.
And Jon Tuck, an industry player who helped Alex and his co-founder Tom get the business off the ground (also still a trusted mentor).
It was (in large part) thanks to the adults who believed in him – and his vision – that Alex and Tom were able to turn a high school science project into an actual business.
Mentors from accelerator iVenture helped Alex learn how to turn his idea into a scalable business, and helped him learn how to run it. They even coached Alex and Tom and helped them win the the U of I's premier startup competition… which put Natrion on the map.
There is so much more to Alex’s story, but my biggest takeaway is this: young people are capable of so much more than most adults realize.
But WITH support and advice and mentorship… the next generation of entrepreneurs will change the world.
Neal Sales-Griffin says, "I invest in the future I want, not the one I have to accept."
This is true of The Pitch. We get to invest in the future we want through The Pitch Fund. And we get to inspire the future we want by telling stories for an audience that needs to hear them.
Who do you know that could learn from The Pitch and be inspired by the stories we share? Text them to share the show.
Natrion Asks
Natrion is looking to hire a senior-level business development position with sales background and experience in the automotive industry.
The Pitch Deals
The following are open deals from The Pitch Syndicate. Click the company name to learn more and apply. Or invest in all these deals via The Pitch Fund!
Modern Picnic is LIVE on AngelList! (Listen to ep. #109)
Dotcal is LIVE on AngelList & closes in 1 WEEK. (Listen to ep. #106)
Dressd - Clothing rental w/local pickup for sororities. (Listen to ep. #104)
The Pitch News
Tether announced its acceptance into Techstars Berlin! Wait… what?! I thought they chose Techstars Stockholm? The drama never ends with these guys 😏 Stay tuned for an update from our favorite Barcelona co-founders (Episode #102).
🌴 The Pitch wants to meet you in San Diego! After a long day of recording pitches, there’s nothing like kicking back with a cold one. Comment below if you can make it June 7th. Location will drop in a few weeks.
Closing April 30th: Applications for The Pitch. Record Season 10 with us June 7-9 in San Diego, CA.
Pitch Panelist Phil Nadel shares 12 steps startups must take to survive the challenging fundraising climate.
Copper Cow Coffee (ep. #54) announces it is in EVERY Whole Foods store in America! Read Debbie Wei Mullen’s post on LinkedIn.
Social Scene
Since half of our team lives in Florida, we shall give ode to the memes of the Emergency Alert that was sent out at 4:45 AM Thursday - scaring the entire state out of bed. It was, in fact, only a TEST Alert...
That’s 20 Million people. Awakened like it was the apocalypse. Mistakenly.
Follow The Pitch on Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Don’t forget! Comment below ⬇️ if we will see you in Cali!
I’ll be there🍻
I'm a little confused by the investors' feedback regarding Alex's pitch. Alex sounded very unenthusiastic during his pitch. He was much more understated than Capri Wheaton with Dressd.
Regarding Capri, Jillian commented [quoting from the transcript] "I didn't feel that energy of a true inspirer who's gonna just get everybody, you know, lifting the team and - I didn't see that.".
But why didn't Jillian use that same criteria for Alex's pitch? Alex sounded almost indifferent. Yet Jillian remarked, he had "smoldering brilliance". Maybe this is just because she didn't quite grasp the technology and defaulted to the boy-genius trope.