“Hello. My name is Spencer Cole. I am the founder and CEO of Wyst, and I’m here to tell you a story.”
He takes a breath, then clicks the remote in his hand, and I throw to the first slide in my binder. We rehearsed this part to death over the past few days, but every muscle in my body is tense as Spencer heads into the presentation.
“This is Charlotte; she’s sixteen years old.” He gestures to a picture of a young girl with flowing chestnut-brown hair. “Her peers have all had ‘the talk’ from their parents, but Charlotte lives in a strict Catholic household. She has no access to sexeducation beyond what she was taught in one class when she was twelve by her school’s embarrassed PE teacher.”
He clicks to another slide. “This is Janice. Janice is worried because her child has come out as nonbinary, and she has no idea how to connect with them and support them through their journey of self-discovery.”
I quickly scan the crowd; most are politely paying attention, but a few are typing away on their phones as Spencer continues. “This is Florence; she is struggling with her mental health at university, but the wait list for free student counseling is months long.” Spencer injects a moment of seemingly genuine emotion into his voice. Wow, he’s really good at this.
“What all these people have in common is they need help, support, and a safe community. This is what we are providing at Wyst. A new kind of social media platform run by professionals in their field.”
He approaches the edge of the stage, no longer flicking through the slides. “Charlotte can talk to medical professionals, anonymously asking the questions she’s too scared to ask anyone else. Unlike searching Wild West forums like Reddit and Quora, information on Wyst is asked for by the community, but provided by leaders in their fields. Janice can talk to LGBTQ+ mentors about how to foster a positive communication style with her child. Florence can get immediate access to mental health specialists and be set up with the help she needs. This is what we are providing through Wyst. Peace of mind that there will always be someone to talk to.”
These users are made up to protect the anonymity of the users, but also to sell something like this to a room full of men, who for some reason need to think of women as their mothers, sisters,and daughters to actually give a shit about them. Even with these stories, I can tell the audience is less interested than when the presentation started.
Despite the reduced attention span of the audience, Spencer is killing this. He’s doing better than I ever could. He belongs on the stage, regardless of whether it’s Shakespeare or business jargon.
Just as he reaches his conclusion statement, the five-minute pitch timer goes off.
“And that’s your time. Thank you, Wyst!” the presenter says off to the side. “We’ll now move on to the Q and A with our panel of judges.”
The audience claps as the panel sits on plush red chairs in a semicircle on the stage.
Spencer talks quietly behind gritted teeth, barely moving his lips. “I think I started to lose them at the end.”
Not wanting to derail his confidence, I lie. “No, you had them eating out of your hand. You smashed it. Final hurdle now, you’ve got this. Just repeat after me.” We rehearsed a few standard questions I thought might be asked, but quickly came to the realization we needed me to do the thinking and Spencer the talking to avoid any inconsistencies in his answers.
A short American man wearing an untailored suit goes straight in with the questioning. “What’s the difference between Wyst and the current market of therapy apps?”
I say the answer down the phone line as Spencer repeats it word for word. “This is not a one-to-one therapy app or a platform to talk to a well-trained chat bot. Think of this as a directory. A community-built, professional-managed social platform. We intend to hire more and more vetted professionals to expand our unified reach; we aim to become a premier entry point for all FemTech B2C businesses.”
The man nods, semi-interested in the response.
“Thanks, Spencer,” the host says. “Dominic, would you like to ask a question?”
Dominic crosses his legs. “How do you plan to expand your content? How big is that delta?”
Spencer’s eyes flash wide; he has no idea what that means. I barely know what that means, but luckily, thanks to my time at Graystone, I’m partially fluent in bullshit.
“We plan to scale up and expand our pages to cover a range of topics affecting women, while launching in as many territories as possible,” I say down the phone.
“We plan to scale up and expand our pages, while simultaneously launching in different countries and languages.” Spencer pauses for a second, assessing the crowd. His shoulders relax as he adds, “We also intend to launch a full-scale multimedia platform.”
My entire body freezes as the crowd murmurs approvingly. Some finally looking up from their phones. My fingers scramble through my folder. “Spence? That is not on the fucking cue cards.” The folder slips out of my sweaty hands and clatters on the floor. My thighs tense when I bend down, my knees pressing against the cold vinyl flooring as I gather the loose white papers scattered like petals.
I watch from the ground as he steps closer to the edge of the stage toward to the crowd. “We will have video content and podcasts hosted by a wide range of celebrities and professionals.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” I say in a strained voice, tapping my finger against the headphone. “Can you not hear me?”My vision locks on the screen above the stage, Spencer’s beaming smile and dilating pupils projected for all to see. He isn’t panicking; if he can’t hear me, why isn’t he panicking? Maybe he’s been disconnected and is winging it.
Another judge asks, “What’s the go-to-market motion here? How do you find people with this specific pain point and how do you convert them into users?”
I pull a headphone out of my ear, bring it close to my mouth, and say slowly, “Through content marketing, affiliate programs, high-end influencer marketing, highly selective brand collaborations.”
Spencer’s words match mine, but he paraphrases slightly. My brow furrows; so he isn’t winging it—he’s just going off piste because he feels like it.
The only woman on the panel of six clears her throat. “Obviously, if you don’t mind me saying, you are a man. What jurisdiction do you have in the FemTech space?”
Spencer sighs and puts his hands in a prayer position against his lips, before bringing them down to gesture to the panelist. “I am passionate about women. I believe that all women and girls should be educated and autonomous with their own bodies. By creating this company, we are putting the power in their hands. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who I am—what matters is our users and community.”
