Hack a startup - Gumbo (Post is WiP)

Taking a dive, I’m meant for this.

  ·   2 min read

  • Pitch Deck / Live website

  • Decided to compete in Hack a startup, by CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.

  • We formed a team of 5, from MSAII, CMU - Jack, Prachi, Tyler, Akshay and myself.

  • Had a bunch of discussions to decide what to pick as our problem statement

  • Loved the idea for something which could create datasets for machine learning

  • Jack had this conviction that we could create an anything API, which could create structure from the internet

  • Bunch of days passed (discussions were fun)

  • D Day hits on Sat (Nov 2nd). We pitch a couple options. Adam’s session on 20-10-10 stood out.

  • We got to TCS. I had to take a detour. Got back after a while. We brainstormed till 2 AM, and then 2 AM hit again cause daylight savings.

  • Morning, had feedback from Alex. Changed out pitch. We were ready to go.
  • Couple of hours in, we were good.
  • By evening, we got to know we were a finalist, which meant - we had 2 weeks to build, do market research and anything we could to show the solution was viable. VC judges were coming in.
  • Days of work. (Lots of stories here)
  • Feedback from Adam - also psn feature.
  • Arthur was a beacon of light, throughout the process. Indebted to him.
  • Pat was also right there with us, helping us figure out everything from viability to a good business model.
  • Final day arrives. We pitch, but get hit by the “scraping is bad” idea.
  • We were disheartened but not defeated. We knew we had something good.
  • Signed up for AI Venture Studio. We’ll see where this goes.
  • Got a call from InnovatePGH. We talk on Dec 5th.