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February 23, 2018

“Redefining Black Masculinity” Awarded Top Shark Tank Prize

The Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies held the Shark Tank Competition on February 22, 2018.

Intensity was in the air last night as Holy Cross held its annual Shark Tank competition in Hogan Suite A. This year the competition was fierce among nine teams pitching for seed money (about $1,000) with just three minutes to pitch, or venture money (over $10,000) with five minutes to pitch. After each presentation the judges had time to ask a few questions before heading to a private room to deliberate. While waiting, the audience got the chance to vote for a new category, the People’s Choice Award. The contestants waited anxiously as the room filled with fellow Holy Cross students and alum. Around 8pm the judges returned with three oversized checks in hand… Check out photos from the event HERE.
Winners:

$5,000: Dillon Carmichael ‘18 pitched Redefining Black Masculinity, a platform for those actively redefining black masculine identity. Dillon said “the event is intimidating and inspiring. To see different people come with such great ideas and motivations makes you want to improve and keep on doing better. Hearing some people go before me almost disuaded me from giving my pitch, but once those jitters settled, it served as additional fuel for my fire. It’s competitive, but a healthy competitive because it comes from a place of genuine passion. Winning still comes as a surprise, but I am beyond grateful that I did and had the opportunity to share my idea with everyone at the event.”

$5,000: Riley Benner ‘20 launched a bespoke men’s fashion line produced by refugees for his company Phoenix Haberdashery. Riley commented “Holy Cross’ Annual Shark Tank was a really unique experience. It’s not often that you get the opportunity to share a night with other aspiring entrepreneurs and get to see the wide range of projects that they’re working on. We have a great community of support here on the Hill, especially from Ja-Nae and Professor Chu and many faculty members, but I think the most rewarding support that we can receive is from our peers who are all just trying to make their dream ideas into reality. Winning the competition was an honor, and it’s a reminder for me to keep working towards fulfilling the mission of Phoenix Haberdashery, because the judges clearly believed in that mission. It’s a wonderful affirmation of the hard work that my team and I have been putting in for the past 6 months, and we’re excited to use the money we received to further that mission.”

$2,500: Brad Ross ‘18 wants to improve goal accuracy for soccer players with his idea Scopum. Brad commented “The Shark Tank event is a really fun and exciting way to engage the entrepreneurial side in all of us. The prospect of pitching in front of judges with incredible backgrounds and experience while competing for real cash prizes allowed us to think as true entrepreneurs. This coincides with the exciting new entrepreneurship program at Holy Cross that provides us as students a platform to truly find our entrepreneurial spirit and bring it out the right way. Thinking about not only specific projects or ideas, but also the market opportunities, business plans, and go-to-market strategies that are necessary to consider in the real world.”

$1,140: Christina Nee ‘19 is interested in upcycling food waste to make delicious treats with her company named Top Banana. Christina wants to say “Thank you to everyone involved last night! I’m so excited to be able to pursue a business that will help combat food waste!”

$100: Hawar Haddadi ‘19 and Michael Lyons ‘19 won the People’s Choice Award for their idea, The Device Doctors. This company is a door-to-door phone repair service for campuses, starting with the College of the Holy Cross. Hawar commented “The event really brought to light the competitive nature of the entrepreneurial world. Everyone really came with their A-game and it was clear that everyone was extremely passionate about their idea. It was great to see such a high level of competition and excitement from Holy Cross students. I had a blast presenting and we received some really awesome feedback on how we should advance with our business!”

Thank you to our runners-up:

Anthony Saltarelli ‘18 presented his mobile app, The Networking Assistant, a tool to help students organize their network.
Nick Lacasse ‘18 pitched Table Split, a mobile app to divide checks amongst a table of friends at restaurants.
Nate Chung ‘18 launched a mobile app named EchoMe that enables users to live broadcast music and listen together in real-time, regardless of geographic location.
Michael Lowther ’18 pitched Undercover Difference Makers, an online platform to highlight those making a difference in the world.

Special thanks to our judges:

Stacy Chin ’12, CEO & Co-founder, HydroGlyde Coatings
Prof. Daniel Klinghard, Director, J.D. Power Center, Holy Cross
Tyler Scionti ’15, Product Expert, Hubspot

Thank you to Ja-Nae Duane, EIR, and Ben Lodge ’18 for making this event a true success. Looking forward to next year and hearing about all the incredible ideas the next group of Holy Cross students have!

February 2, 2018

Annual SHARK TANK Competition

Group photo at the 2017 Shark Tank competition. From Left to Right: Bryan Sparkes ’04, Dylan Oliveira ’17, Ed McLaughlin ’78, Mary Kate Vanecko ’17, Paul Wiley ’20 and April Lukasik P16.

Have you seen the show Shark Tank? Did you know we had our own version of it here at Holy Cross? YES! It’s run by the Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Ja-Nae Duane, where current students will pitch their ideas to a panel of alumni judges for real money. Don’t want to compete? Come watch the show!

The annual competition will be held on Thursday, February 22 from 6-8pm in Hogan Suite A …followed by an alumni networking event! Stay tuned to see who the alumni judges will be.

>> Want to compete? Join us for a prep session held on:
Monday, February 5 and Monday, February 12 at 6PM in Stein 216. *Must attend one prep session to compete.

MORE INFO: Meet with Ja-Nae via Google Hangout or stop by the new co-working space in Stein 129C.

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UPDATE: Interested in who will be on the judging panel this year? Come to the event to meet them and mingle during the networking hour with a number of alumni entrepreneurs!

Stacy Chin ’12, CEO & Co-founder, HydroGlyde Coatings
Prof. Daniel Klinghard, Director, J.D. Power Center for Liberal Arts & the World, Holy Cross
Tyler Scionti ’15, Product Expert, Hubspot

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March 1, 2017

Four Judges, Three Innovative Ideas, Two Hours, One Grand Prize

Four judges, three innovative ideas, two hours, but only one grand prize. With that much on the line you’d think the room would be tense in Smith Labs 155 for Holy Cross’ annual Shark Tank competition. Instead, it was welcoming and as Professor Chu put it, this was a space to “let our entrepreneurial juices flow.” The five judges stood to introduce themselves as Tom Flynn ‘87, managing partner at SV Life Sciences, Ed Mclaughlin ’78 founder of Blue Sunsets LLC and author of The Purpose is Profit, Bryan Sparkes ‘04, EVP and National Director at JLL and last but certainly not least, April Lukasik, parent of 2016 Holy Cross grad Sydney Zeferina-Pugliares, Founder & President of Bright & Early Children’s Learning Centers.

Dylan Olivera ’17, started the evening with a ride-sharing idea initiative called Splitrips, offering a fun, friendly and affordable alternative way to travel by introducing carpooling to college campuses. He tested the market by creating carpooling Facebook groups at various campuses and received many positive reactions.

Paul Wiley ‘20 then pitched his startup, PW Industries, specializing in custom handcrafted executive products and jewelry for the promotional product industry. PW Industries has been running for three years and has clients like Lamborghini and Holy Cross, with hopes to expand this year to more corporations and test other college campus bookstores. These pens are handcrafted and can be personalized according to the client.

Mary Kate Vanecko ’17 introduced her idea, Ella, a jewelry company that empowers girls to find their strengths. Ella was inspired by Mary Kate’s goddaughter, Ella, who at the age of four spreads positivity to everyone around her. Unfortunately, girls can begin to have a negative body image earlier than becoming a teenager. Her jewelry and message resonated with the judges, which they believe could connect with many young girls around the world.

The presentations ended and it was decision time. The judges left the room to pick a winner. After a very long 45 minutes, Professor Chu and the four judges re-entered the room. Now the room was tense. Everyone did so well, there was no clear winner. Professor Chu then announced Paul Wiley ‘20 as the winner of the Entrepreneurship Deep Dive! Paul received $12,000, an alumni mentor, membership to the Worcester Chamber of Commerce, The Worcester Clean Tech Incubator and the Venture Forum. The night ended and everyone left with their entrepreneurial juices flowing for next year’s Shark Tank.

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Thank you to Rosangel Cruz Cabrera ’18 for her recap of this year’s exciting Shark Tank competition. Congratulations to Paul Wiley ’20 and thank you to our judges – Tom Flynn ’87, April Lukasik P16, Ed McLaughlin ’78 and Bryan Sparkes ’04. See you next year!

Cassie Gevry
Associate Director, COES & Prebusiness Program
College of the Holy Cross

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March 3, 2016

The Results Are In! Annual Shark Tank Competition

By now you must have heard, the fourth annual Shark Tank competition was a huge success. Originally advertised that teams could win “up to $10,000,” the final pay out was $14,500! With four great pitches, two winning teams and a panel of successful alumni judges, I can hardly wait to see what is in store for next year. Many thanks to everyone involved!

2016 Shark Tank Competition Winners

FIRST PRIZE: $12,000: Breweries Stewardship Alliance
>Matt Watson ’16 is an anthropology major, and has self-designed his own food studies minor. He is interested in bringing about sustainable, ethical reform within our global food system and is seeking to empower environmentally friendly craft-breweries.

SECOND PRIZE: $2,500: StEP (Student Empowerment Program)
>Sean Griffin ’16 & Jake Medina ’16 are the founders of StEP, a non-profit organization that seeks to close the educational technology gap. StEP partners with existing college and university service programs to enhance educational non-profits and schools with innovative technology, ongoing training, and access to online resources.

THANK YOU to our 2016 JUDGES:

Michael Balmuth: Partner, SV Life Sciences
Michael Guleserian ’93: Chief Experience Officer, Nubar, Sheraton Commander Hotel
James Horne ’98: Analyst, IBS Capital LLC
Larry Naughton ’93: Co-Chair of the Business & Technology Group, Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP

Read a review of the event from Emma Collins ’16 HERE and check the COES website for more information.

Photo Credit: Rob Carlin

March 2, 2015

Annual Shark Tank Competition

The annual SHARK TANK COMPETITION was held on Thursday, March 26, 2015, where students pitched product/service ideas to a panel of alumni judges for the chance to win! Multiple prize monies awarded from clever idea to serious start-up, funds to be used towards the venture.

Over $10,000 in Prize Monies! *Multiple prizes will be awarded.
Competition Date: Thursday, March 26, 2015
5:30pm in McGrath Lecture Hall (Smith Labs 155)

COMPETITION:

Serious Start-up: 5 minute pitch + 5 minute Q&A. Two prizes will be awarded for teams most ready for launching their business.

$7,500/team given to Studily, presented by John Tabone ’15 and Sena Donoghue ’15.
$4,000/team given to SRKA, presented by Andrew Valencia ’15 and Michael Casey ’15.

Two teams won the Clever Idea competition where students had to distill their idea into a two-minute pitch. No Q&A, just $250 per team for an original and promising idea.

Thank you to our 2015 JUDGES:

John Addonizio P16, CEO, J. Addonizio & Company, LLC
Bob Allard ’91, Co-Founder, extensionEngine (eE)
John Calcio, VP Channel Development, QStream
Tom Flynn ’87, Managing Partner, SV Life Sceinces
Ben Kaplan ’15, Co-Founder & CEO, WIGO & 2013 Holy Cross Shark Tank Winner
Mary Moran ’77, Financial Services Consultant and Contractor

Don’t want to compete but want to check out all the good ideas? This event is always free and open to the campus community.

September 25, 2013

HC Shark Tank Winner Ben Kaplan ’16 Set to Launch New Social Networking App

As those of you who are avid readers of this blog might remember, last spring the Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies and the Entrepreneurship Club co-sponsored the inaugural Holy Cross Shark Tank competition where Ben Kaplan ’16 took home the grand prize for his original social networking app: WiGO.

Well, we are excited to announce that since last spring Kaplan has taken serious strides towards making WiGO (Who is Going Out) come alive and he has the initial launch slated for this early October. Holy Cross just might have its very own Mark Zuckerburg on its hands.

The goal of Kaplan’s app is to simplify the process of making social plans for college students. As a freshman at HC, Kaplan felt that making social plans and figuring out “who is going out?” was unnecessarily challenging. College students didn’t want to constantly be sending out group texts and no one wanted to always be posting all the details of social plans online and so WiGO was born.

The app creates networks based on a users’ college or university email address so that, for example, when an HCer logs in their homepage will show all of the other HCers who are users and indicate who has – or has not – said they’re headed out that night. There’s no specifics given, just “I am going out”, and there’s no friending process like with Facebook. Rather, if you go to HC you can see everyone else in your network and vice versa. From there, Kaplan believes that this app will make it easy to see who wants to go out and then utilize the app’s chat function to make plans. Additionally, if you see someone on the app who you’d like to encourage to go out you have the option to “shoulder tap” them, which lets them know you’d like them to see them out.

I had the chance to sit down and talk to Kaplan last week, as he prepared for the upcoming app launch, and what I was really struck by was the way he has developed an initial idea he had last spring into a real live app. He explained to me how he’d started the summer interviewing web developers and coders and ultimately settled on a team from Green Mountain Software, located in his hometown of Burlington, VT. He then spent the rest of the summer working with them to take what was initially an idea in his head and turn it into something that’s accessible and user friendly. We discussed why he decided to hire a local team, rather than outsourcing the coding as many app developers do, and he said that the opportunity to actually meet with, and have easy access to, his coding team was ultimately one of the best decisions he made. It allowed him to take real ownership in the creation process and meant that he could be involved making changes and decisions during the course of development.

Kaplan also credited the Holy Cross alumni network as being indispensable in this process. The time and feedback that he said so many alumni were willing to give him was very beneficial in the development of this app. Last spring, Shark Tank judge Chris Stephenson had told Kaplan that if he brought his idea to Seattle he’d meet with him to discuss. Kaplan cashed in on this promise over the summer, flying to the West Coast to meet, and also said that there were many other alumni who connected him with local entrepreneurs, weighed in on questions of copyright and intellectual property law and offered feedback as he moved through the process.

Obviously in launching an app, the marketing efforts are, in many ways, as important as the actual coding and Kaplan explained that he had a clear game plan for that too: he was starting by focusing on sports teams here at HC, because such a larger percentage of students are involved in them, and had reached out to individuals on the various teams to get them onboard as ambassadors. The plan is that these individuals will encourage their teammates to download, and use, the app thus creating the initial injection of users needed to get WiGO off the ground. From there the hope is that it will catch on organically and as students see how easy and effective it is to use they will encourage their friends to use it, too.

What’s the plan long term? Well, Kaplan is initially launching the app exclusively here at Holy Cross and you need to have a verified Holy Cross student email address in order to register. But, looking forward, Kaplan said his next step would be to roll it out to a handful of additional colleges, continue to monitor its growth, and then allow it to continue to spread to schools across the country.

Towards the end of our talk Kaplan said that he thinks no matter what happens with WiGO – whether it gets off the ground or not – the process of creating the app and bringing it to market has been incredibly valuable in and of itself. That being said, after listening to him for an hour – hearing where the idea came from, how he built the app, and how he plans to roll it out – this blogger has a hard time believing Kaplan isn’t going to make this a success.

March 5, 2013

Ideas for new apps created on Day 1 of the 2013 Executive Leadership Workshop!

Yesterday kicked off the 2013 Executive Leadership Workshop and one of the things the students definitely learned was that working a full day (they started at 8:30 am and were busy until 7 pm) is challenging!

Peter George ’81 started off the week talking about how to start and build a business. He was accompanied by Geoff Oblak and Gary Kramer. The students’ challenge for the day: work with their teams to come up with an educational app and then pitch it to the day’s three executive teachers who were acting as Venture Capitalists.

While all the teams came up with interesting ideas, two teams were ultimately rewarded funding: Michael Biggins ’16, Claudia Bechtold ’15, Maggie MacMullin ’16 and Michael Tucker ’14 came up with the idea for BookChat, an online database for professors to post excerpts of readings and where students can engage in online discussions. Nolan Kiernan ’15, Matt Devine ’15, Brendan McGill ’14 and Sophie Haggerty ’16 came up with the idea for SyncroNote, an online note taking software with an audio recording technology. I’m not going to include too many details, in case any of these teams decide to really run with the idea, but the judges were all impressed.

Stay posted for updates on the rest of this week’s workshop. Today’s topic is “Using Culture and Values to Build a Sustainable Business”. Currently the students are split up in groups prepping for a debate on whether culture should be a primary or secondary concern in companies. We’ll see who comes up with the most persuasive argument…