A behind-the-scenes blog post about our experience at Techcrunch Disrupt
I’m writing this on the plane home from a week-long vacation, the first I’ve taken in over a year–I am refreshed, rejuvenated, ready to tackle Floored’s next challenges. But two weeks ago, as I paced my living room, muttering lines from a presentation I’d be giving the following morning at TechCrunch Disrupt, I wasn’t even sure I should leave the country. The company is still very new, and my to-do list no longer fits on one page. I was going to be leaving a very capable, but new, employee in charge of a LOT of sales & account management stuff, and this presentation was all I could think about. I didn’t want to screw up our first big PR swing.
We applied to Disrupt in February, before–let’s face it–we even had a cogent sales pitch. In January, we’d done a soft launch, and completed work on our iPad app in order to put out a marketing website and start taking orders from customers. The hope was to develop a slick product in time to be accepted to Battlefield, where we’d launch our vision on the larger tech community. After the semi-finals, we were humbled and excited to be named as a finalist.
I only watched our final presentation (embedded above) for the first time last week. In hindsight, I’m pretty amazed (and relieved) by how smoothly it all went. I’m reminded of the trite description tour guides tell Ivy League college applicants: the students are ducks, “seemingly peaceful on the surface, paddling furiously below.” That’s about how I felt all of the Disrupt week. Our team cranked to get the live demo to a presentation-worthy place and our lead designer and head of biz dev built the best sales deck I’ve ever delivered.
We didn’t win the competition. We lost out to a few terrific startups that we got to know well over the final two days. But our business has never been busier, the press from the event has never been better, and I get pumped up every time I filter through my overflowing inbox to respond to potential customers and employees who are as psyched about our product as we are. Thanks to all of you who tweeted about us and supported us during the event. We’re thankful to Techcrunch Disrupt for disrupting our business, in the best possible way.