Last Friday, aspiring entrepreneurs weren’t competing against each other for $500 — they competed against themselves.

At the new Syracuse University MakerSpace in Kimmel Hall, students participated in IDEA Juicer, which resembled the reality TV show “Shark Tank.” Participants had five minutes to pitch their startup idea in front of a panel of judges in order to receive $500 to go toward furthering their businesses. The event was hosted by the Raymond von Dran Innovation and Disruptive Entrepreneurship Accelerator.

Steven Bourdelais, the founder of Lakeside Boards, was one of the two startups that was awarded $500 this year. But as helpful as the money is, Bourdelais said free business advice is just as valuable.

“The fact that the precursor to getting the money is that we have to develop a business plan will essentially benefit us more,” said Bourdelais a junior aerospace engineering major. “We want $500, but essentially we want that $500 worth of business advice.”

Bourdelais spends up to 10 hours designing and creating longboards with his two roommates. Lakeside Boards was one of the four companies who competed Friday.

After the pitch, judges and audience members had the opportunity to ask questions to the entrepreneurs. The event was live streamed online, and those not present were encouraged to tweet their questions with the hashtag #startupSU.

Four students pitched their ideas, but only two of the startups, Lakeside Boards and Caveman Protein Muffins, were awarded the $500.

“We really tried to be unbiased in respect to the industry or type of business,” said Tony Kershaw, an innovation specialist at the Syracuse Tech Garden and one of the judges on the panel. “We wanted to make sure that the money would create some kind of impact with the business in the next few months.”

Stacey Keefe, the executive director of IDEA, said the event began last year as a way for students to fund their ideas at the beginning of the year.

Keefe added that the event prepares students for bigger competitions in the spring, such as the Panasci Business Plan Competition and the Raymond von Dran IDEA Awards, for which the top prizes are $20,000 and $10,000, respectively.

“A lot of students aren’t far enough along to compete in those big ones,” Keefe said. “But if we allow them this smaller money in the fall to the point where they can actually compete, we’ll have more quality students in the spring.”

Caveman Protein Muffins, founded by Zach Schleien, was the other pitch that received the full $500. Schleien, a first-year graduate student studying information management, said Caveman Protein Muffins is a gluten-free product that contains protein and can act as a meal replacement.

The money will go toward subsidizing kitchen costs and gaining resources, said Schleien, who works on the startup with his mother. He added that having his own startup company is an act of self-expression and something that he is proud of.

“What it comes down to is that I’m really passionate about the Paleo diet and nutrition in general, so I really wanted to contribute in some way by providing a product to people that’s healthy and delicious,” Schleien said.

Even though the startup company Contact didn’t receive any money, that didn’t mean its members were going home empty-handed. Contact, which involves the creation of a military glove, was given the opportunity to receive advice from knowledgeable experts to help further develop the idea.

Laura Welch, deputy director of the Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering, was part of the panel of judges and said their decision had nothing to do with the quality of the business or the way it was pitched.

“It was clear from what they were talking about that they don’t know a lot about how to go about working with defense and different funding mechanisms,” Welch said. “We thought that the advice was much more valuable than just a small amount of cash.”

Prasanna Kulkarni, a graduate student studying information management, said he came to the event because he has some ideas of his own and wanted to see how others were executing their ideas. He plans to participate in the second IDEA Juicer, which will be held at the end of the month.

“It was wonderful to see how students worked on their ideas and have already gotten it off the ground,” Kulkarni said. “It was clear that they all loved what they were doing.”

 

– Gifs by Nate Forer, contributing photographer

Published on October 13, 2014 at 12:01 am

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