We came, We Pitched and We Won!

From just an idea which was brewing on Harshita's whiteboard to a validated solution that is ready for market, we won our first prize money of $10k at Launch Pad Western Sydney Startup Year Pitch Competition among the 9 startups.

Over the last 6 months, we interacted with 100+ women who have experienced social isolation at some point in their lives and are seeking in-person real-life connections to form friendships which helped in validating the idea at scale, not just in Australia but globally in Japan as well. Connecting women via food has been the core of ketch-Up because food acts as an ice-breaker for every conversation and brings people together.

ketch-Up at Startup year

ketch-Up won its first $10K

Startup Year

Startup Year Participants

Nonetheless, we learnt a lot of lessons and still learning in our entrepreneurial journey and some of them we'd like to share with you -

• If you have an idea (which may sound silly to you) you never know who it might hit. So go and pursue it.

• Start small, but have a clear vision of what you want to achieve.

• Make sure you have the right people around you to support you and for us, it has been our community.

• Fail, fall and repeat! It's all part of the process. If you don't fail you won't know what failure looks like and it's important to experience that early on in your journey.

• 90% of the startups fail in the first 3 years but then the rest of 10% do succeed!

• Don't attach yourself to the solution. Your solution might be the next big thing but what stands out is your understanding of the problem. How big is the problem, who are these people who are experiencing it and why you are the right person to solve it.

• Lastly, if it keeps you up at night, it's worth pursuing and the only thing holding you back from not doing something, is YOURSELF!

What are we up to next?

We have now started developing our app which we plan to launch to our first users in Sydney by March 2025. Join our mailing list and become one of our beta testers.

We have more meetups coming up so keep connecting and some big plans for 2025. Keep an eye out on our Events Page.

Connect with Harshita on LinkedIn.