When failure shows you how much you care

I found myself becoming a finalist in the TU Delft Impact Contest, a student competition designed to help turn an idea into a startup.

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Being a finalist meant one thing to me: the idea made sense. Not only to me, but also to the people who had selected me to move forward.

Then came the grand finale: pitching on stage, full of nerves and determination to do well. But there was no win. The €10.000 prize I had been holding on to as a possible way forward suddenly disappeared.

I had to roll up my sleeves and look elsewhere.

It was impossible to hold back the tears. I had even hoped to win the prototyping award, especially since I was the only finalist standing on stage with actual prototypes in my hands. And yet, nothing.

I asked myself what had gone wrong. Was it my pitch? Had I not been convincing enough? Maybe the pitch simply hadn’t been clear enough.

So what next? I started applying to different competitions, everything I could find, and everything that somehow found its way to me, as OnCue had started gaining visibility through the university.

It felt as I was dropping small stones into water. Every attempt, every application, every competition was a way of planting something and hoping that those ripples would grow wider and wider, until eventually they became noticeable enough to make some noise.

I also tried crowdfunding after a man with Parkinson’s told me that, if I ever launched a campaign, he would donate something. So I did.

With a bit of the impulsiveness that tends to characterise me, I set up a campaign on Experiment.com. I wanted it to have a scientific angle, but it did not go as I had hoped. In the end, only friends and family contributed, and like many crowdfunding platforms, it was all or nothing. The campaign did not have a happy ending.

I was discouraged, but I still wasn’t ready to give up. And I learned a lot about what it actually takes to create and organise a crowdfunding campaign.

Then, in June 2025, I opened my eenmanszaak (a sole proprietorship). I still remember what the employee at the registration office told me:

“I believe in what you’re doing, and I don’t get this much in here.”

Very direct. Very encouraging.

Thank you for reading.

Alessandra