Maybe the next time, we will suck less.

For the last 10 days, we worked really hard. We took a break from college, break from home and postponed all deadlines of our assignments. We were on a quest, a quest to win app camp 2015. We had been preparing very well for the show. Just some 3 days before, we had worked really hard. We had worked days and nights to complete our app for final submission. Then we were selected for top 24 finalists. Our spirit was very high. We were ready to win app camp.

We were waiting for a year to compete on this program. Last year we didn’t have a team but this time we had a group. We were ready to go; ready to do every possible things we could do in 10 days. At first, we met last year’s app camp winner. We met officers from Nepal Transport Management Authority, Nepal tourism board, CEO of Islington, bloggers, technicians and teachers. We went interviewing with over 100 tourists. We conducted survey among 250 locals. Then with the online forms we spend an entire night, requesting every one of our friends on Facebook. We searched for connections, we met officers. We were kicked our of a restaurant when we asked for an interview with foreigners.

We filled a wall with chart papers. We brainstormed on it. We drew with a shine pen, we wrote on it with a pencil. We crossed it, we erased it, we tore it and finally we prepared a roadmap for our pitch. We refined it, we polished it. We emailed it to our teachers and mentors. We recorded, each seconds of presentation on timer and spend surmount time accommodating all the stuffs we wanted to say.

We read blogs. Blogs on startups, MVPs, investments and all. We read books on lean startups. We watched how Steve Jobs gave presentation. We watched so many videos about body language, eye contact, pitching, dragon’s den.

We competed with each other to find out who has the best presentation skills. We asked teachers to vote. We pissed up so many teachers. Then we practiced and practiced. We practiced more than you can imagine. More than I can imagine myself. We practiced every single line and repeated it as long as it settled in the mind. We practiced until the speech would come subconsciously out of mind.

And we lost. We lost the app camp at the end. And the worst part is, we don’t know why we lost and why our competitor won. We don’t know what went wrong. Where did we missed?

Yet it is not time for despair I guess. We always suck when we do stuffs for the first time. First football shots are always bad. First writings are always sucky. And no child learns to walk on their first steps. Nobody can ride a bike on first attempt. We all suck at the beginning and its fine. All we need to do is stand up and do it again. We should never give up and keep trying. Maybe the next time, we will suck less.

Originally published at blog.8bytestudio.com on December 25, 2015 by Bipin Bhandari.