These kids pitched a dildo delivery service to investors at Princeton startup competition

The Princeton Pitch that will keep you coming

On Thursday afternoon, this post appeared on Free & For Sale:

On Friday night, a follow-up comment was posted. “If anyone wants to know why I needed an 18 inch double sided dildo, come to Princeton Pitch from 7-9 PM in [Friend 101].”

Princeton Pitch, hosted by Princeton Social Innovation and Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, is a competition where students pitch their startup ideas within 90 seconds. There are two divisions, general and social, with first, second and third place in each division winning $1000, $400 and $250 respectively. A $250 audience choice prize is also awarded.

BUT.

Back to the point at hand.

What were these three lovely lads pitching?

As one competitor aptly summarized it, a “Birchbox for dildos”.

Business masterminds Akash Jain ’16, Mike Kosk ’16 and Dan Taub ’16 crafted a pitch that involved Dan pulling out the aforementioned 18 inch double sided dildo, waving it about, then promptly letting it flop back down on the ground.

Raising the novelty toy triumphantly above his head he shouted, “If you’re the type of person who would never walk into a store and buy THIS, then you are our target market.”

Taub said the inspiration for the idea came when his team decided to stop censoring their own creative process:

“We were tossing around ideas a few days ago and realized some of our most viable ideas were the ones we thought were a little edgy. So we changed our tune and decided not to disqualify those kinds of ideas from the get go, and came up with ArgoKnot.

After we nailed down the offering with key ideas like ‘spontaneity,’ ‘couple’s experience,’ and ‘less vanilla’ (instead of dirty or classless), writing the pitch was both straightforward and really fun. We had a good time with this – I never expected to wave around a massive dildo at a pitch competition, so that’s off the bucket list I suppose.”

ArgoKnot is a couple’s monthly subscription service that “sends bespoke creative collections of naughty gifts, where you can add some spontaneity to your tired, sad, missionary-filled lives.”

“Imagine receiving your first shipment,” Akash explains, “of sandalwood incense, or cardamon chai and the Kama Sutra.”

“Or a cashmere blindfold,” Mike adds, “furry handcuffs and an ostrich feather.”

Wish you could see the footage? The Tab has got you covered. Video credits go to Marcello Bonassa.

Or for a closer peek, Princeton Entrepreneurship Club has given us the exclusive.

 

The judges were…intrigued, we think

Somehow, ArgoKnot did not take home any hardware. This year’s General Division winners were:

First Place: Samaritan (Lena Sun, Nick Sexton, Natasha Madorsky, Vera Lummis)
Second Place: Jellifish (Yuan Wang, Rushy Panchal, Aana Bansal, Illya Krasnovsky, Hector Solis)
Third Place: Rem-Me (Yossi Quint, Sally Lemkemeier, Eliza Davis)

The Social division winners were:

First Place: Optimal Learning through Computer Science (Avthar Sewrathan)
Second Place: White Elephant (Claire Adair, Jenny Zhao, James Currah, Samantha Li, Majida Halaweh)
Third Place: YDUN Social Work (Lizette Taguchi)

And the audience prize was awarded to whenisnotgood (Amanda Shi, Monica Shi)

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Princeton University national-us