F.spot, my group's proposed contribution to the SDGs

This is my team, pitching our solution, F.spot, to our subject matter experts and facilitators. 

Over the course of the innovations lab, my team figured that our proposed solution should not only touch upon food security but also address health and sustainable consumption. The problem we've identified was about poor people not having enough access to healthy, nutritious food because it's not convenient, it's expensive, and it's not tasty or attractive.

In comes F.spot, a solution that we propose could disrupt the fast food industry by making healthy and nutritious food easily accessible and affordable for poor people. We opted to sell F.spot to low-income households and college students in the USA because this demographic has the highest levels of obesity (thanks to the relative ease of accessing junk food) and who typically cannot afford to get sick. Marketing F.spot involves strong social media campaigns, banking on the following of one of our members, and involves shocking the audience with adult themes (that some members of the team think could actually sell healthy food).

Brand name. Check.
Marketing campaign. Check.

But what is F.spot?

Developing what F.spot is was challenging. Until our last day in UNLEASH, F.spot was still having an identity crisis. Is it a catering service that delivers meals to the house? Is it a vending machine service that offers hot meals (in contrast with cold salads that people typically associate with healthy food)? Is it a food manufacturing business that produces vegan food items using scraps (byproducts, not leftover food) and misshapen fruits and vegetables from food processing companies and farms?

And that is one fundamental reason why we had difficulty pitching our idea to the various audiences we've faced. We didn't have a well-developed solution. We were pitching something we didn't have a full grasp of yet. However, I don't think that this is necessarily bad because what we have now is a core idea, something that we could build upon. If we find investors who are willing to partner with the team for prototyping and product development, I think that's when our idea will develop its full form.

The other reason why our pitch didn't fly was the style of communication. The spokespersons approached the pitch from a selling standpoint. We missed out on touching the emotions of the audience, letting them in on why this problem was important to solve and why our solution would work. The spokespersons were taken to be rude and arrogant; however, I think that they were just trying to follow the popular Silicon Valley style of introducing a product. Sure, this works for an enthralled audience but for a hostile audience, like what we had, it's not the way to approach the sell.

So, as we close our UNLEASH experience, two lessons were once again handed to me on a silver platter: (1) a good product pitch requires us to know what we are actually pitching, inside and outside; (2) before going onstage, know who the audience is and what makes them react positively. Then adjust the messaging accordingly.