“Do It Live”—When a pitch hinges on a live connection.

Gold on every surface, nerves nearly audible. In an ornate Moscow private dining room, I was pitching to the owners of Russian Fashion Week. The least fashionable person at the table, clutching a prototype built at eBay off the side of our desks. We mapped related items by designer, style, color, or silhouette—timed for the runway, powered by borrowed code and hope.

No shared language, shaky WiFi, and technical fixes begged between meetings. Each morning and just before lunch, another test. I wondered if timezone or API bugs would take us down mid-demo. I wondered

But the prototype delivered. The vision was clear. The owners saw market potential, and our partnership now had some more room to grow.

What I’d do now:

• Lovable: Scaffold the whole experience—visuals and logic—with live data, fast.

• DeepL: Instantly localize assets and flows, turning language barriers into bridges.

• Split.io: Automate testing and monitoring so every live demo runs flawlessly.

Enduring Lesson:
Shared vision beats polish. Speed and clarity win every room—especially when new tools put working prototypes within arm’s reach.