Heart beating out of my chest, palms sweating, legs shaking — somehow I survived. I felt like I went 9 rounds with Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank but luckily I made it out in one piece. I hate public speaking.

How can something that only takes a minute of your life be so stressful? I went in with so much confidence. I knew my pitch like the back of my hand but ended up leaving just glad that this wasn't a real elevator pitch in front of a board of investors. How do people do this in real life?

Maybe I pulled the wrong lever or stepped out an airplane without a parachute but for whatever reason, I stepped up to the front of the class and forgot all the words — typical.

Less to say I tanked the first pitch but Thank the God that I wasn't the only one freaking out. I could tell that everyone was stressed and it made me feel better when I wasn’t alone in redoing my pitch. Forgetting the “getting a good grade” factor I think everyone just wanted to portray their startup well. We all care deeply about these ideas we’ve created and we didn’t want to get up there and butcher it. Honestly, I think that’s why we all had pre-speech anxiety, no one wanted their ideas to sound like garbage.

For me personally I wish there was more time! I could talk about The Dot for ages, I wish I could press every button on the elevator so I didn’t have to stop. It was really difficult to find a good way to compress all of our information into 90 seconds while still making it interesting.

It was interesting to see the different approach Izzy took with her elevator pitch about The Dot. She used statistics to drive her point home, whereas I used stories and imagery that touched me personally to connect with the audience. Having those differing approaches provides a unique outlook on how to make our idea successful.

For posterity I’m including my script that I used for my pitch. I deeply wanted my audience to be drawn in and shocked to pique interests. In order to do this I used a story of a girl that had a lot of impact on me to show the real world effects of period poverty.

Let's talk about periods.

more specifically let's focus on period poverty.

I’d like the girls in the room to imagine what it would be like if you had no access to period products whatsoever..

It would suck right? A few of you guys might even stay back from class.

Well that is precisely the problem that women across the world are currently dealing with.

Flora is one of them. She's a young girl I met in Uganda. She’s bright, funny and loves to learn.

But when she’s on her period, she’s forced to stay home from school causing her to miss up to 60-70 some odd days of class every year leaving her more likely to drop out, get pregnant early and maybe even contract HIV.

That’s where we come in.

We’re the Dot the world’s first nonprofit women’s health app that turns a universal negative into a chance for positive change.

Our biggest key features is the period tracker, which helps women stay on top of their cycles using an advanced algorithm all while giving to a good cause.

When you become a subscriber you will automatically donate 50 cents every day that you are on your period to women’s foundations that provide reusable feminine products to impoverished areas helping kids like Flora, stay kids.

We are The Dot, and through community and awareness we will end period poverty.

Overall I think this was a fantastic learning experience all be it a stressful one. But I feel like it is important for young potential entrepreneurs to do this to prepare for the real world.

Survival of the Fittest