EBS STARTUP BLOG: PART 4 – “The tension is building up”

Are we in the TOP100 or not?

Loreta: “After applying for Ajujaht, we started to wait for (positive) news. The daily rapid development of ParknGo continued and we did not allow ourselves to procrastinate like that. The first week passed, the second as well, the third week was underway, but what was missing was the letter of reaching the TOP100. We even started to doubt our beautiful vision of reaching the TOP100 ever so slightly.

We sat with the whole team on the couches on the fourth floor of EBS and we were quite disheartened. We thought together that “ah what the heck, if we don’t move on to the next stage of Ajujaht then we don’t!”. But we were even more discouraged by the news that some of our course had already received an acceptance message! Of course, we were happy for our classmates, but it was a little unpleasant to answer the question, “Haven’t you received any message yet?!”. We frowned a little and realized that Ajujaht is just one of the many possibilities, not the magic key to the world of success stories. Our success is still in our own hands. Yes indeed, advancing in the competition gives teams many opportunities for rapid development. But for those who don’t move on to the next stage, it doesn’t automatically mean the idea is bad. This is rather the opinion of only one judge and opinions differ.

We agreed that if we don’t come move on to the next stage of Ajujaht, it won’t stop us and we will still bring our idea to life. On a slightly melancholic note, we went to our next lecture. But… but, at the end of the lecture, whoa, you can already guess what happened. “Your idea is among the TOP100”. Real intoxication. Great stuff!!”

Ajujaht pitch and training

Gustav: “I assume that when we were chosen as one of the top 100 in Ajujaht, they saw potential in us and the problem we are solving is real. Expectations for Ajujaht were high. Having reached the top 100, we had to work even harder. Ajujaht organized a pitching training for all of the top 100 contestants. In essence, it was a short training that told us what is expected of us and how to put together a proper pitch and then how to present it convincingly.

The training took place a week before pitching so we had enough time to spare. On the day of the training, we waddled to school happily in the morning to participate in the training via Zoom altogether. We decided to meet up instead of everyone listening alone in the comfort of their homes. That way it would be easier to discuss things together and would nullify the chances of anyone falling back asleep in front of their computer during the early hours.

I was the last one to our room, and there I was surprised by a fun pup, who slept most of the time, but still cheered up the dull morning! It was Markus’ spaniel Ändi. Okay, but back to the subject. The training itself lasted for a few hours, during which we finished our initial version of the pitch and listened to the presentations of the other participants. Later, we were divided into separate Zoom breakout rooms, where they dealt with our ideas on a slightly more personal level and also polished up the pitch. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get much smarter in the breakout room because there was little time and too many people. Still a great experience! Finally, the instructions were given regarding where, when, and how will the pitch take place.”

 

Markus: “Okay, I’ll be honest now. This pitch training gave us a picture of what is expected of us, but the pitch itself that we made there … I would only use it to help people with sleep problems. Boring, dull and technical.

But it’s okay. Fortunately, I had a period as a teenager, when I imagined that I was a relative of (Marie) Under, blessed by (Jaan) Kross, and that my future would be to write pieces that would be published in Sirp. I made the pitch, I would say, into a short story-like product – a short striking story with a surprising ending. I presented it to the team and they liked it. Of course, they liked it!

Somehow we happened to talk to Ülle about the pitch at the end of the Entrepreneurship class, and she kindly invited me to present it in the upcoming Technology course lecture. To be able to practice it. She added supportively that “I have good critics there together”. Exciting!

I started to practice my masterpiece so that it would remember it by heart like an anthem. To do this: I read the text on paper, repeated it in the shower, thought it through in running training, then recorded it on the phone, listened to the recording in the car, before going to bed, when walking, cooking, read it in sync with my recording, and then presented it to a couple of friends. All in all, it got pretty okay, but I wasn’t quite happy yet. A pitch needs to be presented by heart, not by remembering parts of it. Once the text is properly tattooed into the skull, you can only then start improvising and adding naturalness. Let’s leave it at that.

Let’s jump into the moment when I was participating in the technology course to redeem the stage minutes that I was promised. I felt quite sick, to be honest. Everyone there were my classmates, “decent critics” and the nerve started to kick in. I delayed until the last minute and then flowed to the front of the class. I pounded on my chest in my mind and took on a confident attitude of an Athena fighter. I began. I had the text in my head enough that I could even analyze the situation. I looked people in the eye – my teammates, of course, looked at me like parents looking at their child singing somewhere at a Christmas concert, everyone else was rather neutral, even with a little frightening faces. And can you believe it! When I reached the end of the pitch, they clapped! Clapped! For a moment I felt like a pop star and was ready to catch flowers thrown from the audience, but then the round of questions began. Again, I was like a warrior who bravely overcame all of the difficulties he was presented with. Let’s just say I had pretty successful experience. At the same time scary – I would not have thought that I would worry so madly. But well, Ülle praised me and that was all I needed!”

Slightly about the developments of our idea

So, we got to the TOP100 of Ajujaht, but that does not mean we could pull the breaks. On the contrary – this means even more further developments and research. Let’s give a word to Christopher, to comment on that topic.

Christopher: “The research received from the TalTech lecturer enabled us to study our market. We learned that only in the Old and Downtown areas would it be possible for ParknGo to bring more than 42% of the existing parking spots, that are not yet available, to the public.

We also had the idea to add 24 hours, week, month, and year prices. We made calculations as to how profitable would it be for both the client and us. As a simple and quick example, imagine a situation where a person has a parking spot in a zone with a half-hour parking fee of 1 €. In other words, if they rented out their spot through ParknGo on average three days a week, 7 hours a day, he would earn € 120 a month and € 1,440 a year. It’s not bad.

We also came back to the problems, which were now more specifically mapped thanks to everyone’s contributions. The main issue, which we all repeated, was related to the parked car. What to do with a car that has not left the parking space on time? The debate was quite heated because everyone had a different opinion on how to solve the problem. However, we found that the most sensible solution would be to add an additional refundable fee to the person parking, which would motivate them to vacate the parking space on time. As all users of the platform are personalized, we know exactly who is parking and where, and this allows the person parking to be contacted quickly and dealt with accordingly. For compensation, the owner of the parking space could at the same time park their vehicle free of charge in the parking space closest to them that is registered on our platform.

We also focused on the research of suitable gate opening devices, we tried to find out what a proper device must have, and on what basis we will buy it in the future. We also set their purchase and rental prices.

In addition we thought about parking spaces in other Estonian cities. Would we have a market in other Estonian cities such as Pärnu and Tartu? The answer is a big fat “yes”, but in the beginning, we would focus on Tallinn. ”

The top 100 of Ajujaht has been conquered. The pitch has been tested and now all that remains is to keep going. How is the team going to do in the official pitching of Ajujaht to get to the next round and what are the upcoming obstacles? We’ll hear about it in a week!