I hate losing, writes Pip Bingemann, co-founder of Springboards.ai after his business came second in the SXSW Pitch competition. But there’s more to life than winning the pitch.
Maybe I never outgrew competition. First it was against my three brothers. Then it was the ad world where I became one of the sickos who actually loved pitching.
So losing the SXSW Pitch competition sucks.
But before we get into it maybe we should take a step back. The SXSW pitch competition has been going on for more than 15 years. It’s a competition between the most promising startups from around the world in a heap of different industries. It’s held at SXSW Austin every year and the previous finalists have gone on to raise a combined $23 billion. And that’s the sweet sweet USD kind.
Springboards was one of the five finalists in the ‘Enterprise, Smart Data, FinTech & Future of Work’ category and we lost to Polygraf.ai the team that took out the best in show award…. So we basically came second.
Out of the other 45 finalists:
- Nearly 50 per cent mention AI – No surprise.
- Only three mention humans.
- Only one mentions creativity. One.
- Only one in the Advertising industry
- Only one finalist from Australia. (And the only one in the last 5 years!)
To represent Springboards, creativity, advertising, Australia and humanity when everyone other AI startup was talking about replacing people was a win for us. That’s what we are most proud of. Building something that isn’t a zero-sum game, in an industry we love, alongside people we admire
But what was it like? What’s to be learnt?
- Americans are DAMN good at (three minute) pitching.
- This industry is so sorely misunderstood by those on the outside. (One of the judges asked “why don’t we just kill the advertising industry…”)
- Sometimes you have to play the game (I think as Australians we are so often too honest, too transparent and sometimes you need to play the game a bit)
So yeah, we lost the pitch competition—but its not the first time and it won’t be the last and you know what, we take energy from losing… it ignites a fire, a determination to prove others wrong—and that’s what we will keep doing.
But we were not just in Austin for the Startup Pitch… We were here to talk about creativity, to talk about AI and how we think it needs to be broken, to chat with legends like Chuck Mcbride, Matt Herrmann and Liz Levey, to go to sick agency parties like Preacher and GSD&M, to have our minds blown by what’s happening in science (like regrowing brains from skin cells), to convince us that aliens are real and to fill our cups with laughter, a little too much alcohol and to go back to our families, our kids, our friends and our homes.
So who the fuck won now?
