The Latino Startup is my passion and I’ve pinned my hopes that solving a great problem would lead to creating a great company. But like all of you, I too have my moments of doubt, where you decide to risk it all on success. And yes, we will all have moments of doubt, of fear of the unknown, of what if I’m wrong? But yesterday, October 1st, my first day of my next chapter in life I got a sign. A sign that the work matters, that these ideas can have a real impact. That I should have the courage of stepping into the unknown. Please watch my story about the sign. Appreciate any feedback or discussion.

I just received information that one of my first startups in my UCSD program just won a pitch competition in Alabama for $750k! Ruth Young Loaza was either the 3-4 startup to join my program in 2022. By using the LEAN Startup and helping her pivot her concept away from home decor, and instead thinking of her bed sheet system as an ergonomic solution to help housekeepers in the hospitality industry be safer and faster when they made up the beds in hotels, she could get better traction and differentiation. I remember when I said ergonomic and she said, .... ergo.. what? That small pivot in her idea opened doors, created a bigger value proposition than just looking good, and got her the attention of the people who were experiencing the problem. The hotel industry, the insurance companies and the housekeepers themselves. And the coolest thing? Ruth was a hotel housekeep herself for over 20 years, became nearly homeless, but had this idea at her most difficult time that there must be a better way to make beds. She made prototypes, tried them out, refined her concept... even applied for and recieved over 3 patents.... and then joined my incubator in 2022. THIS is the power of finding a great problem to solve, applying yourself to solve it in a unique and powerful way and then, persevering through the challenges of finding commercialization partners. She still has new challenges with the $750k, but she has a fighting chance to succeed and bring generational wealth to her and her children. THIS is why I do what I do..... https://www.axios.com/local/huntsville/2025/10/01/huntsville-entrepreneur-nabs-3x-pitch-competition-winnings

Hey Team, I got the photos and one promo video! The trouble is they are high res and I can't post here. I have them all on a shared drive, what would be the easiest and best way to distribute? David

Good Monday morning! Today I talk about who gets to call themselves an entrepreneur or not. Watch and let me know what you think! Comment below and let’s talk about it,

Today we celebrated the launch of the Latino Startup with a small group of our current Cohort. I took the opportunity to present my slide that I will be competing with on Saturday's Accelerator Throw Down. Maria, Cynthia and Manuel were incredibly helpful in giving my honest feedback. So much so, that they made me rethink my second slide, the "The Problem" slide. For 30 min, the instructor became the student and I got so much great feedback that I will post the next version so you can see how I adapted and learned from that session. This is the power of the Community... a collective brain trust of incredible people! Enjoy this video, the next one will be the after slide so you can see how their feedback helped.