SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Startup Week is back next week, bringing new excitement for local entrepreneurs with a street pitch competition called “Pitch it to Win It.”
This new contest offers a chance to win $1,000 daily throughout the event, which runs from Oct 14-18.
The week-long celebration showcases San Antonio’s entrepreneurial community and centers around the theme “Invest-In.”
This year’s focus is not just on financial investment but also on investing time and resources to support local startups.
Each day of the event will feature a different sub-theme related to “Invest In,” with the aim of breaking the perception that San Antonio entrepreneurs need to go elsewhere to find support and funding.
“One of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve gotten as a city is that ‘Hey, I’d love to start my startup or my company here, but it’s really hard to get investment money in San Antonio. I should actually go to Austin. I should go to Dallas. Houston.’ And so, like, how do we really change that narrative? So we decided to theme the entire conference all around investment,” said Nick Honegger, director of sales and marketing at Geekdom.
One of the main additions to this year’s lineup is the “Pitch It 2 Win It” street pitch competition. The rules are simple: anyone can join by finding the Geekdom team at various locations around town, pitching their business idea, and posting it on social media. The pitch with the most likes wins $1,000 that day.
For those new to pitching or seeking additional guidance, the Startup Bootcamp, starting this Friday, offers an opportunity to practice. Honegger recommends signing up to gain experience or attending the sessions next week to get inspiration from others.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities, but definitely sign up for Startup Bootcamp if you want to practice getting your pitch going,” Honegger said. “If you’re still just totally new, come listen to some of the talks and that will kind of get your ideas flowing.”
For more established startups, there will be larger pitch competitions, with events highlighting Latinx entrepreneurs, women-led businesses, and more. The goal is to support the full spectrum of the city’s business community.
San Antonio Startup Week kicks off next Monday and runs through Friday. All events are free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register and for a full schedule, click here.
Note: The video in this article refers to the street competition as “Pick it to Win It.” The name of the pitch competition has been corrected in the article to “Pitch it to Win It.”
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