 Hello and welcome to the first ever DAV Shark Tank. Today, we're bringing together three veterans who stood out from our 46 person DAV Patriot Bootcamp cohort last month in the field of pitching. The top contestant today will receive $1,500 in cash, the runner up will get $1,000 and the veteran coming in third will receive $500. Now, while those no obligation rewards may help them pursue their important ventures, they're also, they've also each received intensive one-on-one coaching to improve their ability to sell their ideas to customers and future investors. So there's a lot of value here in what we're doing today. Each contestant is going to have two minutes to pitch and take a limited number of questions from our judges. The judges will have about three minutes for their questions. Should they go over there a lot of time, I will in the most annoying way possible let them know via cowbell. Now, before we begin, I'd like to introduce our esteemed judges who are all members of DAV's National Veterans Entrepreneurship Council. I'll start with Marilyn Jackson, CEO of UnderGrid Networks. UnderGrid is a digital technology and engineering firm headquartered in Atlanta. Marilyn has spent over two decades in senior level assignments innovating and ushering Fortune 500 companies into the digital age. Before founding her company, she served as one of the leaders of the Verizon Innovation Vertical Team, which served as the forward-looking think tank for new digital products and services. There she led the creation of commercial and product development relationships with content providers, content service providers, wireless infrastructure companies and mobile carriers. Prior, previous senior positions include those with IBM, Cisco and the Department of Defense. Marilyn has worked with the GSMA, a global organization that unifies the mobile ecosystem to deliver, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal changes. She now focuses her efforts on providing connectivity solutions related to the industrial internet of things, extended reality and artificial intelligence. She's an expert on the impacts of technology on the global connected economy. Marilyn is an Air Force veteran, veteran spouse and Patriot Bootcamp alumnus. Thanks for being here, Marilyn. Donald McDonald is the former Chief Industry Industry Strategy Officer for MX and a very good friend to DAV Patriot Bootcamp. MX, formerly known as Money Desktop was founded in 2010 and now helps more than 600 financial institutions and over 30 digital online and mobile banking providers deliver a better user experience. Don brings three decades of experience in marketing, product development and strategy. A UK native and dual citizen, he connects his passion for serving American veterans with his family's military history. He was born on a Royal Air Force base in Singapore and both of his parents served in the British Army. Don received his law degree from the University of Lancaster in 1983. Now Don's great, he brings a special touch, similar to other celebrity judges you may know, save for the fact that he's not. And Al-Nard Slicko has mentored a number of successful executives and has helped companies build and maintain high performance management teams throughout the years. He is a highly respected leader, innovator and visionary with a rare ability to motivate and inspire. After serving in the US Navy, Al worked as an engineering consultant at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Advanced System Design Group. He received his degree in computer science and information systems from the State University of New York Empire State College. In 1991, he co-founded Systems Made Simple. Under his leadership, it grew from a startup to an industry leader with hundreds of employees and more than $350 million in sales before its entrepreneurial American dream sale to Lockheed Martin in 2014. And now on to the contest. To start the program, I'm gonna introduce each participant by name. When they begin, they will have two minutes to present before they experience the dreaded cowbell. So I'll actually start right when they start speaking, we'll start our timer at two minutes. Our first contestant is Harold Bowser. Harold has served four years in the Air Force. From his first assignment cleaning dorm bathrooms, he felt there had to be a better way. He used his VA benefits to pursue an education as an aerospace engineer and solve problems in that industry for 30 years. But a better way to make shower sparkle remained a lifelong conundrum. Then in 2014, he discovered by accident a way to automate the cleaning of bathtubs and showers. The next year, Bowser received patents for his company Simple to Clean, which provides a solution that could revolutionize an industry. Ladies and gentlemen for our first pitch, Harold Bowser. Hi, thank you. We ready to start? Ready to go. Let me start my screen. Thank you for this opportunity. Experts tell us that we must clean our bathtubs and showers at least once a month, at least once a week. Not to do so causes respiratory problems, diseases and even death. Did you know that you breathe in millions of harmful bacteria each time you use a dirty shower? Even though we do not clean our bathtubs and showers, often enough the US still spends over $3 billion in man hours every month cleaning bathtubs and showers and another billion for cleaners and cleaning supplies. Hi, I'm Harold Bowser. I'm the founder of Simple to Clean. Our solution, robots. Our innovative robots automate the process and eliminate the labor. Our patented robots make cleaning and disinfecting your shower, bathtubs and showers, as easy as saying, Alexa, clean the master shower. And they save you enough in cleaner and cleaning supplies to pay for themselves. Our robots have huge market opportunities in all three sectors of the economy. In just the US residential market, there is an existing market opportunity of a quarter of a trillion dollars in an ongoing annual market opportunity of four and a half billion dollars. Our initial customer validation consisted of two professional and independent market analysis. After seeing the results, the founder of the firm that did those analyses told us, I've not seen a demand like this since cell phones. The startup team currently consists of Michelle, my wife who is a natural born leader. Mitch is our business consultant and I'm the product developer. We are currently interviewing for additional experience leadership. Simple to Clean. Healthier, easier. Healthier, easier. Was that two minutes? Yeah, four seconds left. For some reason I lost my screen. You're right on track. Okay. I'll defer now to our judges for their questions and we'll start our timer at three minutes, which judge. Okay, let me start then quickly. Harold, what resistance will customers have to try in you and how will you overcome that? I'm sorry, say again, sir. How will, what you're describing is obviously something everyone deals with, but moving from the old way to a new way requires change. How would you get customers to actually try your new technology? Our go to market strategy is to introduce our portable unit to hotels and motels. Each, the robots will pay for themselves in about six weeks. Each hotel, each hotel after that will save thousands of dollars a month. I believe that's an incentive to at least try it. And then that would, that will generate a $250,000 unit demand almost immediately. Okay, so a B2B approach to start with. Thank you. Yes, sir. Al, are you up? Yeah, I'm up. Yes, I am up. Do you have any questions for me? Yeah. I mean, do you already have the robot created or is this a concept or where are you in the process? I have an MVP and now I'm developing what I call the first article. In aerospace engineering, the first article is the actual product that you sell. So I have the MVP. I've tested it many times over and I have videos of those tests. In fact, I did the testing to make sure that it worked even before I even started. So I'm at MVP level and working on the first article. How do you know it's working? I tested it. How do you know it's, I know you tested it. Can you explain to me that test process and why you believe it worked? Well, I did a number of tests before I got to this one but I built a full-size shower which is now sitting in my garage and actually implemented the system into that full-size shower. It was a glass shower because I wanted to see how clean it did and it actually left the glass chrome and everything else completely spotless. With testing, I used CLR also and it removed rust stains, calcium deposits and hard water stains with no manual labor at all. So is this a device that you leave in the shower or is this a device you bring to the shower? We actually have four of them. Two of them are built into the home. So it's gonna require new construction or remodeling but we also have a portable unit that you carry from one shower by one hand you carry it from one shower to another. Okay, but you said that you were gonna introduce it initially B2B to hotels and whatnot. Are you gonna plan on having these hotels do construction to install the units or are you going to be selling individual units to them that they will then use to clean their bathrooms or their showers? We're initially going to introduce the portable unit which is the one you carry. Okay, so the portable units first is what you're saying. Because it's easier to implement and introduce. We're right at three minutes. I'll give Marilyn a chance if she has one more question quickly. Yeah, I do have a question more from a functional perspective. So these devices that you have, they will clean the walls and the various types of materials that exist in a shower component. Yes, they'll clean the shower completely. The process is actually very simple. It's basically, when I filed for the patent I was told that they weren't gonna, originally they rejected it because it basically is the same process that your dishwasher uses to clean your dishes. Basically it creates a continuous sustainable spray. It'll run as long as you want it to as long as it needs to. If you clean it after every use, maybe three minutes if you let it go for a year for whatever reason just run it for an hour and a half and your shower will be spotless. Thank you. If you can see how long it'll remove rust things. Thank you. That's all we wanted. Sorry, I'm sorry to cowbell you Harold but here we are. Gotta keep the show moving along here. Great. Okay, so our judges I'll ask you to just go ahead and plug in your results here. I do wanna mention that DAV Patriot Bootcamp Winter 23, our new cohort we're very excited about is going to be hosted at our national headquarters here near Cincinnati, February 9 through 11. Mentors and business leaders will offer up to 50 new participants and valuable advice, insight and one-on-one guidance. Each day of Patriot Bootcamp will also include presentations by world-class experts covering an array of topics including common legal startup mistakes, marketing and sales and pitching among other things. Select participants will be invited to participate in a pitch contest with thousands of dollars and no obligation funding up for grabs following the event. So if you wanna register for that, you're welcome to applications are open through Thursday, December 8th. So interested entrepreneurs can apply at PatriotBootcamp.org. There's no cost for registration or participation beyond personal travel related expenses and lodging. Those who apply will be contacted regarding future opportunities and programming to support their entrepreneurial journey. DAV is also seeking leaders to serve as mentors, presenters, panelists and event volunteers if you're interested in doing that. Please contact us at info at PatriotBootcamp.org. Again, anyone who is interested, please check us out. You can register or just sign up for the newsletter at PatriotBootcamp.org. For those of you who won't be available at that time or otherwise might not be attending, please share that page through your networks and make more people aware. Whether you sign up for an event or simply add your name to the mailing list, you'll get special notifications to participate in Caffeine Connects and other programs as they become available. Now on to our next contestant. When Marine Captain Jonathan Cunningholm lost part of his right arm in combat in Iraq, he utilizes his background in engineering to provide contemporary solutions that better meet his fellow arm amputees' needs. He founded Stumpworks and developed a custom prosthetic ecosystem using performance textiles and modern manufacturing. Jonathan employs his personal disability to be a test pilot for each product he creates with the goal of drastically enhancing the experiences for those missing limbs. Thank you, Jonathan. We'll start timing when you start talking. I'm John Cunningholm, founder of Stumpworks. We've created a revolutionary new prosthetic arm with a dynamic volume breathable textile socket. After losing my arm as a Marine in Iraq, I became an engineer on the DAR prosthetics project and its first test pilot. That arm has never been available and I've never won in one. Why not? Only 30 to 50% of arm amputees even use a prosthetic arm and nine of the top 10 reasons that they don't are related to fit and comfort and that's the socket. Traditional sockets are uncomfortable, painful, and even injury inducing. Our customer's pain is literally that socket which is like wearing Dutch wooden shoes with rubber socks and it restricts range of motion by half. $200 million in government research hasn't fixed any of those problems. We have. Our textile socket is based on advanced athletic shoe technology that wicks and breathes and does a better job at solving all 10 of those problems than ever. Two real and lay systems adjust to the movement of the arm and increase range of motion by 60%. We've fit a second patient at the VA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By addressing our customer's literal pain, we will better serve and grow a total available socket market of $5 billion. We're seeking partnership with anyone who wants to disrupt the prosthetics industry and deliver on our promises to those who have borne the battle. Fantastic job. Thank you, Jonathan. We'll start with Marilyn. Hi, Jonathan. Great presentation. Would pain be in the main factor of the resistance for adoption of your device? Are you using any other methods other than just the materials to alleviate pain? Well, the materials are part of the whole design and construction which removes the problem that a hard carbon fiber socket doesn't move at all. So it creates pressure points that lead to the pain and contain the arm like a plastic bag that creates heated moisture. So the materials are part of it but the overall design is important to achieving all of that. And by what factor does it reduce pain? When you move a limb within a socket, you create a single point of pressure and this arm conforms to the arm and doesn't create those pressure points. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Have you researched the prosthetic market and looked at the other, some of the main manufacturers who would obviously be part of the rollout of this technology? Well, we're initially gonna focus on the VA and Canadian clinics which aren't subject to the constraints of CMS coding. But yes, the Hanger company owns more than half the clinics, the civilian clinics in the US. There are certainly a possibility that auto-Bakunosa are the two largest prosthetic product companies in the world. There are also certainly potential partners. Have you approached them yet or are you thinking of coming up with a plan of how to approach them? I have approached some of them. All of these companies have been represented at the conferences that I've attended in Japan and most recently in Fredericton, Canada. And also the Philour company in Tennessee is another potential partner and I have had some discussions with them. Thanks, Jonathan. Don, Don, you're on mute. We'll give you back 10 seconds there. Okay, Jonathan, quick question. Obviously you're saying that your solution will provide a lot less pain that in terms of the people paying for this insurance companies, medical facilities and so on. Have you convinced the people paying that your vastly improved product is worth the extra money? Is it more expensive than the incumbents or is it a competitive price or how do you deal with the fact there's a lot of people out there would rather sell their product than yours? The answer to that is very complicated because as you say, the person paying for it is several steps removed from the person who actually receives it and wants it and benefits from it. But at the end of the day, we believe that patient demand for something better is capable of overcoming all of those obstacles. And at the end of the day, clinicians want more successful fittings. If somebody gets a socket that they hate, they may never come back for another one. If somebody's actually using ours, they'll be getting replacements for the soft part of the socket and asking for replacements every time insurance will allow it every five years. So you are a large part of your plan? Say again? Is PR telling that story that you've just articulated? Is that a large part of your plan? Yes, it very much is. And we can start right now. 5,000 potential DAV members are missing arms and please ask your prosthetist for one of these and email us at info. It's dumpworks.com Thanks, Jonathan. You get that last free plug because I went over on my time a little bit there. I'll let the judges go to their scorecards right now. I do want to mention, I saw someone tune in, a very important guest, Ray Antoninos joined us. He's, Ray taught a very dynamic class called Rocking the All Important Pitch at our last cohort. It helped all the participants. He went over and offered personal coaching to each contestant here today. He is an amazing spouse. Rebecca, we're extremely helpful at the event. Ray is the co-founder and CEO of permits.com, an Army Reserve veteran and past Patriot Bootcamp participant. Ray is a founder three times over, a two-time Techstars alumnus and he puts at a master of mistakes, but he's done a lot of great things for these folks and talk about the kind of people we have at Patriot Bootcamp. At 20 years old, Ray owned a car dealership. By 30, he was a licensed home builder. And by 40, he was a tech entrepreneur. So a great person subscribes to the ethos of give first and that's certainly what he's done through Patriot Bootcamp. So thanks for joining us, Ray. Appreciate having me here. I also want to thank alternate judge, Dave Knox of Blue North. Dave is an investor and startup advisor in the areas of innovation, marketing and digital transformation. As chief marketing officer at Rockfish, company known to DAV, he helped it become one of the fastest growing agencies in the country going from $8 million in 2010 to $70 million plus in revenue in 2016. He co-founded the brandery, one of the top 10 accelerators in the US. He's been a great friend, wrote a great book, predicting the turn, the high stakes game of business between startups and blue chips. And Dave is, he's executive director of Blue North. He and his team have done really great things for DAV here in Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati area. And he's an important friend. So thank you both. Ray and Dave were both among 10 speakers and dozens of mentors who volunteered their time to help our participating founders. Each of them, many of whom were CEOs, attorneys and other leading subject matter experts in their field were extremely generous with their time and showed clear passion for our cause. So we're very grateful to everyone who participate in the event. Obviously we need to move on to our last contest. I think we're ready to go. Judges are back. All right. Soon after Marine veteran, Kirsten Rivas, separated from the military in 2009 or Rivas, she was diagnosed with a hormonal disorder that wreaked havoc on her body. Determined to find relief that medications couldn't provide, she turned to holistic, full body care, everything from skincare to massage therapy. Now with BYND beauty, Rivas wants to bring those same services to others in hopes of helping them on their own health journeys. Earlier this year, she celebrated the opening of her first brick and mortar spa. Kirsten, you're on the clock once you begin speaking, thanks for being here. Would you drink formaldehyde every day unknowingly? What about BPA? Hi, I'm Kirsten Rivas. I'm the founder and creator of Beyond Beauty Holistic Wellness Center. We provide custom curated holistic wellness treatment plants from high-quality natural sources while eliminating harmful chemicals in the process for people who are looking for a natural alternative to their lifestyle. The beauty industry is worth $582 billion in 2021 with a 4.75% annual growth rate, but it's unregulated with these chemicals that are put into products labeled as preservatives or fragrances. Since these chemicals are all over the place, it can wreak havoc on our hormones and other systems in our body because they're directly absorbed into our bloodstream. So that is why we want to focus on creating these custom wellness plans for our clients by using the most natural ingredients possible to create not only a relaxing environment, but also an environment that's nurturing to their own health and wellness that they're seeking to look for. And as someone who has went through a lot of the same process, having to look and research, I'm uniquely qualified to provide these services because I have had to go through them one-on-one to work with my own diagnosis and my own holistic health. So I am looking for mentoring and help in getting the name and the business out there and showing what we have to offer to the rest of the market. Great, thank you so much. We'll start with Al Nardslico. Hi, yeah. Where is your business actually located? Where are you gonna be providing this service from? So we are located in Lebanon, Missouri. It's about 45 minutes south of Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. I'm roughly in between Lake of the Ozarks, Springfield and Fort Leonardwood, so southwest Missouri. Are you looking to set up an initial spa that people would come to? Or are you gonna try to do a franchise or what are you looking to do to grow this thing? Initially, we're gonna start with just the spa brick and mortar and then work our way up to becoming a wellness event retreat center so that they will have multiple different options to be able to come in and do different treatment options. But to begin with, we're just gonna provide salon spa treatments to kind of get the word out there and get everything in the ball rolling. Great, thanks. Don. Yeah, hey Kirsten. I think what you're describing is obviously there's a huge need to have back to nature and eliminate a lot of the harmful chemicals that we inadvertently are putting in our mouths and in our bodies and so on. How do you tell that story? How do you actually differentiate what you're doing versus the very, very large incumbent competitors who also kind of whether they say it or not almost claim that what they're doing is natural, healthy, blah, blah, blah. So if your essence is about how yours is genuinely pure for the body, how do you say that? How do you brand that or communicate that? Well, I think it goes into how we actually formulate our treatments. Our treatments are completely custom every time a customer comes in. I'm making a lot of the masks in-house from different holistic products. So I'm taking different kaolin clays or different products and I'm actually curating the products in the treatment centers while I'm doing it. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Marilyn. You're on mute, Marilyn, I think. Yeah, I wanted to thank you, Don, for stealing my question because I wanted to focus on the product and the composition because like you say, everyone is different. And so again, just being able to customize to a level of accommodation for the different types of people, et cetera. That's kind of laborious. So I'm just wondering what are you thinking in terms of how you're going to reach the broader markets? Well, we do work with different lines that I've done a lot of product research on that are true in the same concepts with their chemicals and their processes and their ingredients. So it makes it not as laborious because I have the products and I can pick and choose pieces and parts of the products that have already kind of been created and then just have to customize certain pieces and parts to the individual. So it's not a... You're talking segmentation versus customization. You're gonna segment your clients into certain groups? No, because it's definitely gonna be pieced by each of the treatments. There's no way that you can really segment a person because even though, say, another person has PCOS, they might have something else that would trigger something else. And so I would have to customize that treatment to be able to work with both of those, both of those conditions that they have to make sure that they're getting the optimal treatment that they need. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll let our judges go to their side room to deliberate. And while we do, I wanna thank every volunteer again and DAV Patriot Boot Camp alumnus who attended our event last time. And I wanna introduce someone special. We have joining us, Angela Cody Roje, an Air Force veteran. Angela used to have the keys to the nukes, but now she declutters and organizes homes with her team of liberators in various locations. Angela spent 14 years serving her country as a satellite control commander and missile combat crew commander. Her spouse assigned her the moniker Major Mom after she was promoted to the rank of O5 and had her first child in 2005. After deciding that life in a missile silo in motherhood were no longer compatible, she left the military and created Major Organizers, a residential organizing company. She has been building the Major Organizers brand ever since. Angela is no stranger to pitching. In 2016, she was featured on the military episode of Shark Tank and began franchising her concept the following year. She volunteered as a speaker and mentor at the event last month, presenting as a panelist on the Build a Winning Team seminar. Angela holds a BA in speech communication at Indiana University and an MBA from the University of Colorado. She's a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and the Executive Director of Faithful Organizers. Angela, thank you so much for being here today. Tell me, what do you think of our contestants today? I thought they did an amazing job. I can tell that they've been coached up and you just don't do pitches like that without some coaching. So I think they did a great job. Obviously, they made a few mistakes, which is natural. They have some improvements they can make, but they have plenty of opportunities to continue to go on and pitch and make those improvements. It did seem very distilled and I think we could probably thank Ray a little bit for that. Can you tell me just from some of your takeaways, what is some advice you might provide our other folks about when they're in a situation like this, when they're pitching? Yeah, I think that, you know, when I have the opportunity to be on Shark Tank and be behind the scenes for four days, and so you get to see a lot of how they get you ready to go in front of the sharks and a lot of practices and things like that. So I think two really huge things is I really don't personally believe you can overpractice for an important pitch. I think that you need to practice significantly for any pitch. The other thing that I would say, and this is just my personal opinion, I've been told this many times and I've seen this go wrong many times is, I would say unless technology and PowerPoints are mandatory, I would say don't use them at all because sometimes the PowerPoints don't work and I think that happened today for one of our pitchers. So those are the two things is, you can't practice enough if you are feeling it and breathing it, you haven't practiced enough. And I think that third thing is that if you're not passionate during your pitch, if they can't feel it, that's gonna be hard for people to be passionate about it for you. If you are not, I think I say lackluster, not that any of the contestants today were that way, but those are the three things really is that you really gotta just let your passion for your product or service come through without being embarrassed or trying to be too polished. But it's interesting that you say too polished. What did you think of some of the advice, some of the tips that Ray gave during his presentation at the event? Ray had so many great tips and one of his was about technology, but the other one that Ray would talked about is that you need to believe in your product or service inside and out, but you also have to know that your numbers inside and out. And so you can't fake numbers when you're answering questions. It really is best to usually say that you're not 100% sure or based off of your experience, this would be your best educated guess. But Ray would never tell you to make something up in a pitch competition, but to own that you actually don't know that. And he's pretty clear about those type of things that been on center stage is not the time to make stuff up. Well, let's see if we can, if Ray, would you have any thoughts or comments seeing these folks? I know you had a busy day today. Yeah, I just got off of planes, I rushed home and great to see you all. Yeah, just room for a short amount of time, you're trying to get a lot out and it's really figuring out what to be, what matters. And it's all about getting the next meeting and it's hard in two minutes, but it can be done. By the way, just a quick shout out to major mom, she's always been such a great mentor to me and I wanna thank you. I really do, thank you. Major mom, can you tell us about your Shark Tank experience? Well, the one thing that I did notice about in my Shark Tank experience, I was on the military episode and when they were giving all the instructions and what to do for all the days you're gonna be there and what not to do, all the military veterans were on the front row taking notes, paying attention to the lawyers and all the 50 or 100 people that are telling you what you cannot do. And a lot of times what you cannot do on Shark Tank is promote another brand purposely or accidentally that you won't make it to airing. And a lot of other entrepreneurs were on the back row on their phones, just really answering emails and doing things, which is an indicator that you've got a rock and roll in business, but my good point to any entrepreneurs, if you can't step away for three hours to get some really important instruction, you haven't built the right kind of team. And so we would see entrepreneurs go in to do their practice session, which you do in front of a bunch of people before you go into the tank and they would bomb those pitches. They would show up without all of their sets. So a lot of things was happening on the Shark Tank behind the scenes. They also are very clear about what not to do when you're in the green room and the holding rooms and things like that. And a lot of entrepreneurs would not follow those rules. I think veterans were very good about following someone else's rules, even though we're really good entrepreneurs, we are able and respectful of other people's gig that you're at. And so that experience really showed me that the people who were honorable and respecting the Shark Tank policies and procedures just did better. That's a great point. Now, Ray, I understand you've had some success recently, pitching, tell us about it. Yeah, so I couldn't announce it when we were there, but I had made the USAA's main stage for their 100th anniversary. So I just got back from San Antonio and was fortunate to win in the second place. They had done 190,000 they gave away and second place took home 50,000. So it was a wonderful win. And yeah, so the non-dilutive cash, I always liked that. That's why I came out of retirement. It was that good. That's fantastic. What do you think, I mean, are there specific things that you noticed from the folks that maybe came out of coaching or anything, any surprises? Well, you're talking about the ones that I just heard, Drep. Yeah. So I believe Chris and Rita's, she had really started off really, really tight with getting out there with attention grabbing, coming to the place where she was comfortable to say who she is and what her company was about. I think that was way more succinct than I had ever heard from her and understandable. I was able to digest it. And I think that was where she had really improved because you need that to happen to go any further. If somebody doesn't know what you do and you don't have their attention, you're not going to have a conversation. There's no conversation to be had. So I got to give her a lot of credit for that because that was, and unfortunately I had missed and I did hear Michaels. Michaels burned fairly consistent. I think he did a really great job in the question and answering part, particularly when asked by Marilyn about the difference between the, how it fits on and the compression points. And so I found that those things, I unfortunately didn't get to hear Harold this time around other than the last tail end. Yeah, I did notice, I think I saw this more with Harold than I saw it at the cohort. There was a little bit more structure there. How important is being organized and kind of having that template, you think? Major Ball? Well, being organized in your thoughts is really good, but if your technology fails during your presentation, you need to be so organized that you don't depend on the technology in the presentation. And Ray and I have seen that happen over and over and over again where the entrepreneur completely loses place, loses where they're going because something happened with the technology and you really have to practice with it and without it. Yeah, practice, practice, practice is key. And if you have it down, you can overcome what happens in real time. And I've had it happen to where I've had to say, and so ultimately what I'm trying to point out here is X and it's succinct and you understand it and everybody will give you a pass that that failed, but then you try not to ever use technology again during the pitch. And that was, you actually had a video in your presentation when we started going and I think maybe you have that just to make us have a dry sweat, but it seemed it had other purposes. Yeah, I was intentional to leave that video because it would either work or it wouldn't and I would be okay either way in the context of what I was showing, I would never encourage it. The first place winner of USAA used a video and it was incredible, but man, if it wouldn't have worked, I would be first, period. So, and he earned that first place position. He had incredible technology, that video displayed something that words could not in a way that, but you got it, you just got to believe and trust in that process not to do that or to have a really good backup plan by practicing. That's a great point. Can you tell me, Major, we'll start with you, Angela, why do you think it's important that people participate in programs like Patriot Boot Camp? Oh my goodness. I mean, sometimes you can be in business for one to 10 years and thank you, know everything, but you don't and also you forget stuff that you maybe learned your first year in business and Patriot Boot Camp is super important for founders that are yes in the beginning stages or their first, second or third company, but you can really be in the middle stages and learn how to scale, learn how to go to the next phase. Maybe you've just played small, but you've always dreamed of going bigger, but you don't know how to get there. So, Patriot Boot Camp takes founders and really opens their eyes to the possibilities and the landmines that you better look out for or you're gonna blow your business up. Thank you so much and thank you, Ray. I believe that the scores are in. Can we take it over to Don? Thanks, Don. Thank you all, thank all of our judges, everyone who's participating through time. How'd things go in there, Don? Yeah, very interesting. And again, it illustrates the importance of the resources that DAV Patriot Boot Camp can bring because in the judging, we actually uncovered a large number of kind of considerations that we'd love to be able to provide through the mentoring, things like legal liability, thinking bigger, partnerships, distribution, scaling, how do you differentiate? And so again, these are all the challenges that in the real world, everyone who is an entrepreneur has to overcome at some stage. And I think we found that with the three participants, we focused on different areas. And so would you like me to give you the results now? That's whenever you're ready. Okay, all right. Well, first of all, thank you to all three of you. Two minutes is a very short period of time to get your story across. And it did leave us with more questions, but nevertheless, based on the format and the judging, in third place, drumroll. Kirsten, congratulations. You did very well. The scoring was quite tight. Basically, some of the feedback for you that we can take offline as well was about how do you think bigger? How do you actually grow your business from being an individual shop? How do you overcome the need for scale, which is a recurring theme across everyone, in terms of that ability to be able to almost avoid customization. But nevertheless, there was a need, huge opportunity, and we wish you a ton of luck as you go forward and build that business. So you've got all of our support helping you and wanting to make you incredibly successful. Personally, I think this lean towards more holistic, purer chemicals out of our body systems is going to become a massive trend. And so the challenge I think is going to be how do you make sure that you ride that way and how you differentiate from all the incumbents? Or how do you even work with the incumbents? In second place was Harold Dizer. Again, high scoring. Clearly, there's a huge need for what you're bringing to market. The challenge, of course, is how do you actually bring that, again, using this scale work? How do you scale it? Questions asked over hotel. Is it one machine for 500 rooms? Is it X number of machines? Legal liability in some of the IP questions are things that I personally, I'd love to talk to you about or at least come back to a Patriot bootcamp and get more advice and dialogue on there. But again, we'd like to have seen perhaps more momentum in terms of having an MVP or beyond an MVP. I know you've got one. And I think that would be incredibly powerful. On your presentation, you showed us a diagram that didn't demonstrate. You said you had a video. So some immediate feedback. It would be terrific if you could have shown us a video so that morons like me would get it straight away and understand the sheer potential of your vision. But the vision is booming. The vision is pretty interesting. And again, good luck with that. And then Jonathan, you scored very highly in terms of the articulation. You were incredibly clear about what need you were serving. Again, questions from us on the judging panel. Again, we wish we had more time to deal with this around how do you scale? Do you actually go and compete with the large incumbents? Or do you actually provide something that makes it inevitable and very attractive for them to acquire, for example? So again, this whole theme across all three of you is partnerships, franchises, and how does that enable you to scale? But nevertheless, in terms of the need, in terms of a very specific segment, even though it's, I'll say it's specific, it's a very large segment. Again, all of us wish you the very best of luck in your endeavors on there. And again, DAV and Patriot Bootcamp, a lot of resources to help all three of you with any questions you might have in terms of the next roadblock that you might come across. But all three of you demonstrated a desire, a passion for what you're doing. And again, just huge amounts of goodwill to you as you go on this crazy journey of being one of life's wonderful entrepreneurs. Thank you so much, Don. Thank you, Al. Thank you, Marilyn. Ray, major mom. Fantastic job. Want to thank our finalists. Spent a lot of time doing this, and we wish you the best of luck with your exciting ventures. Thanks. I want to mention again, a final pitch for Patriot Bootcamp. That event's coming up in February, registered by December 8th at patriotbootcamp.org. I also want to thank the Patriot Bootcamp board who steered post-acquisition funds to support pitch contests and lodging for mentors and speakers. We'll be back on tomorrow at this same time for our DAV Caffeine Connect featuring the Securities and Exchange Commission. It will be broadcast live across DAV social networks if you have questions, tune in, and we'll see what the SEC can help you with. For more information about Patriot Bootcamp and our upcoming February cohort, whether you're interested in participating, getting information about upcoming opportunities or volunteering, please visit again, patriotbootcamp.org. Thank you all and have a great day. Thank you for your service and good luck to all of our...