Over the last two decades, I’ve heard thousands of live pitches from excited and nervous founders. A few years ago, I listened to pitches by 65 diverse startups from three continents in the same week.
There are times when the founders—with the glimmer of potential funding in their eyes—take your mind to faraway places … some good, some not so good. When they are good, the pitch is simple and compelling. The value is obvious; management is savvy; the product/service is easily acquired; and, most importantly, customers and partners love it. It gets easy to tell if a company has what it takes to succeed or not.
It’s amazing to see new founders tenaciously pitch, and then see them a decade later when they’re confident of their success. Wes King of Tahoe Trail Bar is now mentoring with me for a national accelerator. Matt Levitt of Tahoe Blue Vodka struggled for years getting his product to market; now he sponsors a big arena in South Lake Tahoe, and he mentored a student of mine at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was making a new meal for backpackers. Denis Phares of Dragonfly Energy Corporation sponsored a tech prize during the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition a decade after he competed as a grad student in 2014. Matt Linder built a rad, custom overland truck for himself. His business, TruckHouse, won Sontag five years ago, and in 2026, he was a finals judge. How cool is that?…