How We Got Funded By 500 Startups On A Cab Ride To The Airport

How we received funded by 500 Startups on a cab experience to the airport â€" Kevin David, co-founder, Sonder Getting seen by 500 Startups was tougher before that they had an utility process. In 2012 without an software course of, you wanted to be really helpful by people throughout the 500 network (firm founders or mentors). They do have an application course of now. My co-founder Ramakanth Dorai and I have been 23 yr old current school grads from India who started Walletkit and didn’t know anybody from the 500 network. But that is how we hustled our way in. On Aug 24(2012), I saw a tweet by Paul Singh from Mumbai Airport. His subsequent tweets revealed that he can be in a few Indian cities assembly entrepreneurs and meeting him would require a referral. I cold emailed him rather than in search of a referral with an intro about our team, the product and requested if we could meet in Bangalore which is closer to our city, Chennai. I use a small trick when mailing individuals who get plenty of emails. I examine their Facebook and twitter profiles for updates and mail virtually at the simila r time they tweet or share (used Tweetdeck for notification of updates). He replied asking about our product, but then went radio silent. Followed up by way of e-mail within the next couple of days but there was no response. Later on, his tweets revealed that he was meeting a lot of entrepreneurs in Mumbai and Delhi. His tweets revealed he reached Bangalore on the evening of August twenty eighth.On Aug 29th round 7:50AM, Paul tweeted a picture from a high rise constructing. I assumed it needed to be a hotel at this time of the day. We narrowed down on the placement of the tweet and found solely a few good motels close by. We finally guessed it needed to be the Royal Orchid Hotel. We had to do one thing spectacular and we weren’t about to surrender the chance to meet him when he was in our neck of the woods! We decided to make small custom-made printed books for each of the five hundred Startups partners, which contained our pitch deck. I went through the Facebook & Twitter profile s of all the five hundred partners and did my greatest to decipher their favourite picture poses,colours, clothes style, and so on. We then fed all this info of the partners to Andrew, a pal who drew caricatures. Those became the cover of the e-book, and we additionally got the pitch guide done by our designer Isaac and got posters printed of each caricature. We received all these books and posters accomplished by night. We noticed from his tweets, Paul was staying for a max of forty eight hours in each metropolis,so we needed to rush. The quickest and cheapest way to get to Bangalore is by bus. So we slept on a bus eight hours in a single day to Bangalore. That night, I seen an Instagram picture posted by Mukund Mohan, CEO of India Microsoft Accelerator with Paul in his office. Fortunately we had a meeting with Mukund the subsequent day. When we met up with him, he confirmed that Paul’s resort was indeed the Royal Orchid, but that Paul would be leaving the town soon. So we hopped into a cab to the resort, tweeted out to Paul on the way saying we were hanging around the hotel, and would love to fulfill him. (Again, no response) We reached the lodge foyer at 11am in anticipation. We decided to provide a call to Paul’s phone (I received his quantity from his email signature and from Mukund). No reply. So we left a voicemail saying were ready in the hotel lobby and would love to satisfy him. Another hour passed. I went over to the reception desk to investigate if Paul had checked out. Before I might ask, lo and behold â€" Paul Singh comes out of the elevator. I hovered around, waiting for him to check out of the lodge. Then I instantly jumped in his method and launched myself. I was too excited to fulfill him! Instead of providing my hand for a handshake, I immediately thrust our pitch deck e-book into his arms. At first, this seemed like a horrible thought. Paul took one look at the first e-book, saw a cartoon of himself on it, and instantly freaked out, ask ing “Who the f**k are you guys and what would you like???” I thought I had blown it. But I kept the dialog going, explaining how we tracked him down and began to pitch him proper there in the lobby. Unfortunately, the dialog got cut short as a result of he had to run to a meeting. Paul asked if we could wait until 2 pm and said he would love to speak to us before he left to the airport.We stated yes since we had come all the way just to satisfy him. We waited till 3pm, Paul sent us a tweet as he received struck in traffic and possibly had to rush to the airport when he obtained again to the lodge. We were quite certain Paul was touring alone from his tweets and in addition when he checked out alone out of the resort. So we determined to ask Paul if we could pitch him in the cab as there must be house for each of us and obtained every thing able to pitch on my laptop. Eventually, Paul came again, apologized for being late, and warranted he’d give us a call once he was again in the US. I said “Paul, if we don’t freak you out again, can we be a part of you on the cab ride to the airport and pitch you on the way?” He stated “yes”. We obtained into the cab and pitched him on the best way to the airport. After listening to us, Paul started pitching 500 Startups to us and how they might help us! We bid adieu, and then three weeks later we obtained an e mail from Paul with a suggestion to join the Fall 2012 Accelerator program! Pitched in a cab on the way to the airport by @kwdinc & @ramakanth_d /cc@davemcclure @christine_tsai @christenobrien pic.twitter.com/svhqjwLS â€" @paulsingh We’ve had the possibility to be part of the Batch startups Accelerator program, working alongside some of the best entrepreneurs and mentors from around the globe. Biggest takeaway from our journey of hustling into 500? If you’re persistent, you’ll always discover a way to get what you want â€" so long as you by no means give up.We’re glad we didn’t. Hustled exhaus ting! Sometimes you have to do no matter it takes to win, to get what you need, to get noticed and what you actually deserve! Jim Rohn puts it greatest “When you understand what you want, and need it bad sufficient, you will find a approach to get it”. If you actually need to do one thing, you will discover a means; when you don’t, you can see an excuse. Enter your email handle: