I live! Barely! Damn you climate change! My body can’t handle the hot-cold, perpetually changing weather we have going. Because I spent two weeks in August suffering from cold and flu, which resurfaced just last week. My illness nearly stopped me from attending the Creative3 2018 event at Moda Events Portside. But in the end, sniffling, barely able to talk and only performing at 60% max, I dragged myself for an evening of fine dining and judging!

By that I mean, that Creative 3 Pitch competition finalists helped kick off the night. They delivered their pitches to us, and we voted on who should represent Australia at the Creative Business Cup (CBC) in Denmark. The four finalists changed from a service provider to a hardware startup. But based on the night’s performance, there could be but one winner: ANTI.

ANTI is a helmet company who have designed a helmet for those who don’t like wearing helmet by making it look like a beanie. It’s a clever idea, and they pitched it by having one found hit another, helmeted founder, on the head with a large stick. They had me at large stick to the head! But honestly, it was the most interesting pitch of the night.

Coming a distant second to Anti in my estimation was World's Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS), a social enterprise that aims to capitalise on our increased awareness and desire to enter the circular economy. I have been doing a fair amount of research into the circular economy and so was very interested in the concept. But I didn’t think they were strong enough to stand on a global stage.

While I put The Right Fit third, I think they have the best business model. I mean, they are already a few years old and going strong! They are a talent booking platform, operating on a higher tier then many of the other freelancing and gigging platforms. That said, I think they have a fair amount of competition in their space. But the pitch implied they had their niche figure out.

Finally, the Can’t Sleep App cropped again and I must be missing something! I wasn’t convinced by the pitch or concept when I heard the pitch on Collider Accelerator Demo day, and I wasn’t convinced this time around either. I don’t get it. I mean, it’s a $10 per month subscription service! Maybe it’s amazing, and if I ever tried it, I would be hooked. But again, $10 per month! I can’t sleep badly enough to spend $10 when I could get Spotify Premium for that same price. I price premium is supposed to be for the music therapy science behind it all. But I don’t buy the pitch.

Apart from the pitches, the four-course dinner was punctuated by some great speakers. First up was Amy Cosper of RadicalUpstarts. She managed the pitch finalists and also gave a nice talk on the conception of stopping digging into the ashes. So many times during the startup journey you hear about persevering, it’s easy to forget that you aren’t supposed to ride a dead horse forever. Knowing when to give up is also important.

At this point, there was a surprise fashion show that was not in the program. The show was put on by four designers who had completed Fashion 360 accelerator. I enjoyed the show it but it did make me wonder if I was dressed fashionable enough for the occasion. I thought I did pretty well despite my illness. I was also wearing an offering from a fashion startup. Not a local one but underneath my dress, I was wearing the Honey Love Sculptwear!

Cameron Adam of Canva followed her. That was an amazing talk about Cameron’s background and his journey so far. I wish he had gone into a little bit more detail on how Canva happened, but that was not the subject of this talk. He did leave with three lessons, 1. Start what you finish, 2. Don’t work for assholes, and 3. back yourself. Good lessons to live by!

Following Cameron, was the most surreal talk of the night. Althea Lim spoke about her company Gushcloud International who works with social media influencers as well as creatives from music, film and television etc. to help them build an online presence. It was surreal for me because I watch enough YouTube for it to feel a bit like the curtain being pulled but what I am seeing not entirely adding up. After her talk, I asked her about burnout among social media influencers and also bad behaviour by social media influencers. She gave good answers but also prefaced them with, that’s not what her company does exactly. Understandable and as I said, she did give good answers.

After Althea Lim’s talk, there was a panel on Kind design. I confess that I tuned out a bit at this point. It was a long night, and I needed a mental break. The last talk of the night was delivered by the comedian Tim Ross who also has a passion for mid-twentieth century architecture and design. It was a good talk with some great jokes. His passion for mid-twentieth century architecture and design was on full display. So I am happy to agree to disagree with him on the aesthetics of this period because I find most designs from this period to be ugly as hell!

Overall, a great evening and I am glad I dragged myself there, even if my trip did prolong my illness and set my recovery back by at least a two days. I mean, as they say, no pain, no gain!