Raleigh-Durham Startup Week added a bundle of new events this past spring, and one that largely stole the show (as GrepBeat wrote at the time) was the Bad Pitch Competition.
Organized by Catie King, Shannon Varcoe, and Dr. Sarah Glova, this was fake pitch competition-turned-comedy show that challenged participants to present startup ideas that: 1) Solved real problems for founders; 2) were utterly un-fundable; and 3) forced the audience to ask, but why not, though?
The event packed the American Underground at Durham’s American Tobacco Campus. And because it was such a hit, King and Varcoe decided to bring it back for a fall edition as part of the inaugural Raleigh-Durham Climate Week (RDCW). This time around, the idea was to put forth “amazing pitches for absolutely terrible ideas to save the world.”
Naturally, it’s now my duty to present the terrific bad pitches that were given on Thursday night.
First up was Petty Planet, fake-co-founded by Chip Kennedy (of actual startup CivicReach) and Kenyetta Hall (The Katalyst HQ). This startup revolves around a single mantra (which the presenters kindly taught the crowd to recite through several rounds of call-and-response): Shame and embarrassment changes behavior.
The idea? Harm the environment through casual negligence (leaving the fridge door open, for instance), and Petty Planet will humiliate you via anything from facilitating a nagging message from an aunt to posting a confession from your own social account. Leave the lights on too long and the platform will even put your home up for sale so that someone who “understands switches” can take over the property.
How does Petty Planet do these things? What’s the business model breakdown? Don’t worry about it. This is how we save the planet.
Second to present was Hot Garbage, fake-co-founded by Sarah Lane-Hawn (Lane-Hawn Consulting) and Danny McPhaul (TE Connectivity) and operating on the premise that “if AI doesn’t end us, the climate will.”
The solution to that little predicament: Monitor company data storage, make sure team members delete absolutely everything, and give them small rewards—such as the chance to plant coral in data center cooling ponds—as incentives along the way.
This process promises to monetize “enterprise-grade despair,” with the co-founders noting that while employees probably won’t be saving the planet, they’ll feel like they are.
And in the end? The Hot Garbage system that brings about efficient data deletion will determine which employees themselves need to be deleted, and when.
Once the Hot Garbage team had cleverly responded to multiple probing judge questions by referring them to naturally non-existent fine print, the third team took the stage. This was Floaty Toots, a startup fake-co-founded by Tim Scales (RDSCo., RDCW, etc.) and Katelin Wheeler (CED).
Citing a few possibly actual statistics, the Floaty Toots duo put forth a logical equation: Ridding the planet of methane is more effective than cutting carbon; bovine flatulence produces methane (apparently dwarfing all of North Carolina’s emissions?); and methane is lighter than air. What this means—obviously—is that we ought to be crafting party balloons with methane, sparing the environment from the gas and making up for waning helium supplies in one go. As the team put it, this “solves two crises with one cow.”
Given the quality of the idea, it will surprise no one to learn that Floaty Toots had all bases covered. Their technology (Katelin hand-ties double knots) prevents the methane from leaking; they’re already in the market for a cow flatulence collection intern; and they’ve assessed the competition (“literally no one else is doing this.”).
Once the Floaty Toots team had punched a bunch of ballons (thankfully just air-filled prototypes) into the crowd, the fourth and final startup stepped up to present. This one was comprised of an alliance of folks from the RFEU (Raleigh Founded Extended Universe): Paola Ayala (Trayecto), Brandon Kashani (Trakid and CheQRboard), Parker Mayes (HelpBnk), Isabella Dearr (Atomic Object / independent artist), and Emily Paul.
Their idea? Only-Fans. But, you know. With a dash. And hopefully good lawyers.
This team is building app-connected fans that spin in connection to users’ scrolling activity. It’s a patent-pending concept (meaning, as Mayes pointed out, the patent is pending the science working) that turns existing doomscrolling activity—possibly even related to despair over the environment—and cools the air with it. That’s the process, and a red-hot domain name takes care of the need to grow a user base.
“Doomscrolling might be detrimental to your mental health,” they acknowledged, “but you can do it with a purpose.”
That was the final official pitch of the evening.
Following a tradition established during the inaugural event at RDSW, there were then spur-of-the-moment mini pitches given by audience members while the judges deliberated. These mini-pitches, this time around, included proposals such as allowing people to rent bins from trash facilities to dig for “treasure” and launching people into space as a ride doubling as one-by-one control for humans’ environmental footprint. You know, normal stuff.
Then the judges returned to announce the winners.
Your RDCW Bad Pitches 2026 Audience Vote Winner: Only-Fans.
Your RDCW Bad Pitches 2026 Judges’ Champion: Floaty Toots.
Stay tuned for the next edition of this community-favorite event in March. It’s pretty clear that the bar is going to keep being raised.
