Having your dreams dashed by the stupidity of others

So as some of you would be aware i won the entrepreneurs competition in adelaide, as a result we went up to brisbane to pitch our idea at the australia wide version. We only had 1 month to completely redo the business plan and we got a couple of additional "students" to join us, one is a PhD student with 15 years experience as a entrepreneur starting up businesses and harvesting them, the other just finished his masters of entrepreneurship and has 25 years experience as a chartered accountant.

So so far so good, we got the business plan redone, largely due to me devoting almost every waking hour for a month working on it. Matt did us some insane animations and we put together a really really really good presentation, it was so good that after the semifinals the feedback from the judges was "dont change anything, thats the best presentation we have ever seen" so everything is continuing to be fine and dandy. One of the semi finals judges said to our mentor that "you have is sewn up, none of the others where even close to your presentation" all encouraging signs.

In the finals nerves where high and once again we did a knock out pitch, the judges began their Q&A with "well done that was an excellent presentation" which put a smile on my face, the questions began well and then it all went horribly wrong, on a question on the intellectual property the finance guy jumped in and started pratelling on about a seperate holding company which was at no point mentioned in the business plan or presentation. This confused the hell out of the judges (and us) he then proceeded to jump in on every question before the judges even finished asking them, he even managed to insult the intelligence of one of the judges.

some ppl just dont know when to shut up, now his big mouth and temporary ego-centric-insantity cost us $10,000 cash and $15,000 in travel expenses with the entry rights into the american competition (with $100,000 in cash and prizes). you would think that would be enough ...... but no .... at the awards dinner one of the judges came over and gave me her business card, now instead of keeping quite like a normal person he decided to tell the CEO of ilab (a technology incubator) that she was a bad vineyerion (he had decided that she lost it for us due to her parents having grape vines and her not getting everything we said straight away) i mean damn!!! the guy just couldnt stop screwing me over.

but on the plus side i learnt some very very very very valuable lessons about knowing the personalities of the ppl i go into business with.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?

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