When Tenrehte was first getting off the ground,
we entered our prototype PICOwatt
into a competition associated with CES,
Consumer Electronics Show,
the world's biggest industry trade show.
And we build the prototype in my dad's basement.
We had no idea if was actually going to work
on stage at a live demo for CES judges.
And the product, when we flew it to Arizona,
it wasn't working right off the bat.
We were fixing software
and changing it at the last minute.
And I got a sinus infection on the plane,
and I had to get up on stage
and do the demo anyway.
And I was holding on to my phone
to demo that the PICOwatt
would turn lights on and off on stage
and I had no idea if it was going to work or not,
but I was hoping that it was.
And when I pressed on,
the light turned on,
and the product worked,
and it was just this serendipitous moment
between me and my partner Carlos
when the product worked live when it had to
in front of a huge stage,
you know, with a huge audience
and tons of judges.
And I think it was at that moment
I really knew we weren't just playing around
with a start-up company,
that we could actually do this.
We could build products.
We could get it out there
and that people would appreciate what we were doing.
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