Six weeks before SXSW Sydney, Paloma Newton and Jackson Gritching made a decision that would define their startup: pivot their entire business strategy, build an MVP from scratch, and compete on one of the world's biggest stages.
In this episode, Abhinav talks with the co-founders of Elita Blueprint about how they won their category at SXSW Sydney while simultaneously building their pet health platform on Bubble. Paloma shares her pitch strategy — from synthesizing a complex biotech story into 3 minutes to getting booed from the audience (in a good way). Jackson reveals what it's like building the product the night before launch. Together, they break down the new playbook for pitching under pressure.
Topics covered:
- Why SXSW became their forcing function for the pivot
- Choosing Bubble with zero dev experience and a 6-week deadline
- The pitch strategy: Telling a human story in 3 minutes
- What actually happens when you win (and the judge who got booed)
- Their playbook for pitch competitions
Find this episode’s full show notes here:
- https://bubble.io/blog/the-new-build-01-elita
Links:
- Elita Blueprint:
- Sign up to be a Elita Blueprint Beta user here
- https://install.page/elita
- Follow Elita on Instagram:
- https://www.instagram.com/elita.pet/
- Follow Elita on Tiktok:
- https://www.tiktok.com/@elita.pet
- Follow Elita on Linkedin:
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/elitapet/
- Start building on Bubble:
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Chapters
[00:00] Introduction to the episode and the Elita founders
[01:59] The origin story: how a pandemic puppy named Edgar sparked a pet health startup
[05:59] How stem cell banking for pets actually works
[09:14] Why everything pointed toward building a digital platform — despite no software experience
[14:09] The SXSW Sydney deadline and getting investor buy-in on the pivot
[19:17] “Being the robot” — why Paloma manually handled the first 50 concierge requests
[23:29] The Cindy Gallup moment: telling a hero “I’m about to quit my job and start a company”
[30:51] The hardest part of crafting a three-minute pitch for a complex business
[36:07] Pitch day nerves and why being anxious shows you care
[40:56] The moment they knew they had won — when the audience booed a judge
[45:52] The playbook for pitching: iteration before practice, and knowing when to play
[52:57] Hot take: entrepreneurs aren’t paying enough attention to their customers
[57:47] Most memorable career feedback: “You have an unhealthy bias toward action”
[1:03:41] Bubble updates, Academy refresh, and Bubble Tip of the Week
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The New Build is a bi-weekly podcast from Bubble exploring how solo founders and small teams are shipping real products to millions of users with modern tools. Subscribe for their playbooks — and start building yours.
