It has been a thrilling week and a half here at Perfectly Pitched! Over the past 10 days, our clients have taken home five separate pitch competition wins back to back (to back, to back, to back again!) Literally every pitch competition our clients entered, they won. To say we’re proud would be a massive understatement.
We were prepared for the possibility of a few of these wins, but some were a complete surprise! To tell you all about it, we thought we’d take some time to shine a spotlight on our amazing, award-winning clients & the work we’ve done together to help tell their companies’ stories & unlock that winning potential! We’ll kick things off with one of our very first clients.
Perfectly Pitched Services
- Pitch Deck Development
- Part-Time CMO
- Website Design & Copy
- Social Media
- Video Production
- Accelerator Support
David Hojah is the founder of Parrots, the creators of Polly, a unique SaaS platform that brings the power of artificial intelligence & machine learning to people with advanced disabilities like MS, ALS, Parkinsons, and others. Built on their Three C’s, Polly helps patients Control their own environment, Communicate rapidly & easily, and manage their Caregiving through smart telecare solutions. Parrots believes there are countless people like Stephen Hawking out there, just waiting for tools to help them break free. Which is why everyone at Parrots (including us!) is dedicated to making accessible tech financially accessible too.
Parrots kicked off our win streak with a 1st place win at MedVentures Health Innovation Pitch Competition on May 19th, winning a cash prize of $5,000! Not to be out-done, he took home another 1st place win on the 25th at the 2022 AI Med Global Summit Shark Tank in San Francisco. This is just the latest in a long line of successes for Parrots, who happened to be one of our first official pitch deck clients way back when. We’ve also taken home pitch contest wins from SXSW, TechCrunch, Verizon 5G Challenge & many others! Go Parrots!
David has been our longest-running client. In fact, his was one of the very first pitch decks I created for a company other than one of my own! We met through the Halcyon Incubator and his cohort was one of the first where Halcyon invited me back to help subsequent fellows with their presentations. We’ve been working together ever since!
Perfectly Pitched Services
- Pitch Deck Development
- Brand Storytelling
- Presentation Class
- Branding Class
- So Many Cookies Eaten
- (Seriously, go order cookies!)
We were lucky to meet Caroline Johnston – founder of Green Island Bakery – through our partnership with the Halcyon Incubator’s 2022 Opportunity Intensive cohort. Originally from Northern Ireland, Caroline grew up during The Troubles, a period of profound civil unrest & violence. During that time, Caroline saw how her Mother’s kitchen became a source of comfort, healing, and community for her family, friends, and neighborhood. Her Mother created amazing baked goods & turned her kitchen table into a refuge. Following that inspiration, Caroline started Green Island Bakery to not only bring an authentic taste of Ireland to the Washington, DC area, but also to provide a safe haven for women survivors of violence. She developed programs around baking therapy & culinary training services for women from all walks of life. Whether survivors of domestic violence, sex trafficking, combat veterans, et cetera, Caroline welcomes them all & provides supportive environments where the soothing, tactile nature of baking can help provide a grounding experience to work through their issues. She’s also developed culinary training programs, helping women to learn about the culinary industry and discover new economic opportunities.
As if that wasn’t amazing enough on its own, she also happens to make the most delicious shortbread we’ve ever tasted! Seriously, while we worked on developing her pitch deck & storytelling strategy, my team & I ate so many cookies! (Or rather, biscuits. Yes, my time in the UK was not totally wasted!) They are 100% worth all the calories. If you’re a fan of honest to goodness authentic Irish shortbread, you need to head over to GreenIslandBakery.com & get yourself some. You won’t regret it, I promise!
Fueled by delicious buttery shortbread, we worked with Caroline to strengthen her overall storytelling & pitch strategy, alongside creating an aesthetically beautiful deck. We worked in preparation for her pitch at the DM Venture Derby on May 20th, where I’m proud to report she took home both the Social Impact Prize and overall 2nd Place, for a combined total prize package of $7,000! Great job, Caroline!!
Perfectly Pitched Services
- Brand & Logo Design
- Pitch Deck
- Presentation Class
- Branding Class
- Illustrations
- Storytelling Strategy
Just like Caroline, we met Alec Brewer & Kobe Rogers – Co-Founders of OuroBio – through our partnership with the Halcyon Incubator, where they were fellows in last year’s Opportunity Intensive cohort. They were known as Transfoam back then & we were so excited to support their remarkable innovations in the development of “closed loop” bioplastics. These brilliant recent college grads from the University of Virginia (Go Cavaliers!) developed unique engineered microorganisms that can break down waste plastic and transform it into bioplastic PHB that’s 100% biodegradable in both soil & marine environments! That’s right, even out in the wild, their PHB will break down into nothing but non-toxic trace gasses and water, all in less than 2 years. For comparison sake, most other bioplastics can still take up to 20 years to biodegrade, if they fully biodegrade at all! As I told Alec & Kobe last year, I feel like one day their names could be right up there with the likes of Jonas Salk & Norman Borlaug, because this could be the key to solving our planet’s growing plastics crisis. It’s been our honor to help them on their exciting journey!
On top of the immense social impact, it’s also just a sheer joy working with both of them! We were so excited when they came back to us again this year to begin the task of rebranding Transfoam as OuroBio & to prepare for their imminent pitch for the Lighthouse Labs RVA Demo Day!
Based on the concept of the Ouroboros – an ancient mythological symbol of a serpent eating its own tail, symbolizing an infinite closed loop – OuroBio wanted their brand to reflect the uniquely circular nature of their contribution to the bioplastics industry. As a brand designer, I’m a huge nerd for all things symbolic, so I was thrilled to tackle the challenge of coming up with something that lived up to both the heritage of the ouroboros, and the importance of what OuroBio seeks to achieve.
Over the past several weeks, my team & I have been hard at work, not only developing their new brand, but also re-styling the pitch deck I created for them last year, all in preparation for their Lighthouse Labs Demo Day! It was a tall order getting it all done in time — further complicated by my own horribly timed battle with food poisoning (thanks for being patient with me, Alec & Kobe!) — but I could not be more proud of what we were able to accomplish together! I drew the “Ouro” part of their logo entirely by hand in Illustrator, creating it out of one single continuous line, flowing cleanly through each of the letters. Each end capstones symmetrically in order to give a subconscious hint at its potential to join together in the background to form that infinite closed loop. It also then leaves infinite potential for OuroBio’s ambitious plans for the future!
All in all, I think OuroBio’s new logo might just be one of my proudest achievements as a logo designer!
To then have all our work recognized with a win at Lighthouse Labs, that was just the perfect cherry on top! Alec & Kobe took home the Judge’s Prize, which included a cash prize of $1,500, plus what might just be the coolest pitch competition prize I’ve ever seen: they’re getting a shark named after them! That’s especially poetic, considering that a huge part of their focus on biodegradability stems from Kobe’s deep love of marine animals. Their achievement of 100% biodegradability will go a long way toward protecting their new friend, Ourobio The Shark, and all of his oceanic friends.
Huge congratulations, Alec & Kobe! Keep on saving the world! And as always, we’ll be right here, ready & willing to help in any way we can.
A Special Prize
In addition to the $1,500 cash prize, OuroBio received an extra special prize from the folks at Lighthouse Labs:
A real live shark will be named OuroBio in their honor!
Alec & Kobe posing with their plushy shark prize! Photo by Dina Weinstein for Richmond Inno. Click to check out their article about OuroBio’s win!
Congrats & Thank You!
After such an amazing week & a half, we have to say a huge congratulations to all of our phenomenally talented, ambitious, and inspiring clients!
Thank you for trusting us to help you tell your stories, define your companies, and achieve your goals. Thank you for allowing us to celebrate in your accomplishments, and be there for you when things don’t work out. It’s a pleasure & a privilege to know you all!
Keep up the amazing work & generally being your fabulous selves!
How Can We Help YOU?
Are you an early stage social entrepreneur? Or a small business owner looking for something new? We’re here to help!
At Perfectly Pitched, our specialty is helping you tell your story to unlock your company’s future success. Whether that’s through branding, pitch decks, social media, marketing materials, or what have you, it’s all about the magic of storytelling to us. We can put our award-winning strategies to use for you & help you achieve your goals!
To learn more, check out our full Services Menu! If you’d like to book a free consultation, contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you & learning all about your unique story.
