After a year-long preparation, four Business Incubator groups pitched their innovative ideas this week to a panel of judges in hopes of receiving an investment and starting donation for their product. Athlattic, ParkingPal, SafeSorella, and Velox Photography each took home a portion of the money, but it was ultimately ‘Velox Photography’ who was awarded the Pitch Night Cup.
The business incubator classes this year consisted of 16 groups with 16 unique product ideas that they’ve spent the year creating, developing, and growing. Each team must be willing to participate in a rigorous process that includes multiple presentations and meetings with investors.
Only then can a few teams qualify for Pitch Night.
In March, each team pitches their idea in an MVP presentation in front of a few judges. Six weeks later, the teams pitch again in an academic presentation. The investors each pick the top four presentations and those groups advance to Pitch Night.
The decision made by the judges is mostly based on the viability of the product, as well as the presentation skills of the group. Those groups take the next two weeks to prepare for Pitch Night.
Described as a “Shark Tank” based atmosphere, the five investors, as well as judges, were allowed $10,000 to divide amongst the four groups as they saw fit.
The first group to pitch was Athlattic, a website that allows students and parents in the community to buy and sell their lightly used athletic equipment at a lower cost to benefit both the environment as well as the financials of local families.
Athlattic’s four group members have become very close over the past year working together day in and day out on their product. Group member Grace Clark believes that the “good team dynamic” is what has “helped them succeed” this year.
“We work really well together as a group. Our product has improved immensely into what it is today because of that connection,” Clark said. “We also met with a lot of outside people in the community, in business accelerated and other companies, who knew about business to give us a lot of good advice.”
Athlattic received $1,000 from the judges. Their first plan of action is to develop their website to get it up and running, and from there they hope to improve their marketing to gain more attention.
The groups all agree that the preparation for this night is extremely tedious and requires countless hours of practice. CEO of SafeSorella Kat Yakes said that the day before the pitch, all five of the group’s members skipped a class in order to do a practice pitch in the RMA.
“We had a group meeting for about two and a half hours the night before. We practiced in class a lot, and this week we practiced after school. Many hours of practice go into the 15-minute pitch,” Yakes said.
The next group, ParkingPal, began their pitch with a crowd-pleasing video of group member Chris Lindemann running in late to the presentation due to his parking spot being far from the high school.
Their product is an app that allows students and nearby families to connect so that the students can easily find parking around the area for school. The app aims to create an easier way to book parking at a better cost for homeowners.
Before they began pitching, the video set the tone for their creativity, and as their pitch went on, they introduced their group motto of ‘Look, Book, Park,’ which kept the audience engaged. The video was inspired by a product created in the class a few years ago, and they were able to shift the narrative to focus on their unique product.
“We collaborated with our ideas so that we could come up with the most creative elements for our pitch, and we really thought outside the box and allowed our pitch to be creative,” Arvia said.
The group took home $1,500, and due to their exciting presentation, ParkingPal was voted “Best Pitch” of the night by the judges.
SafeSorella, a jewelry brand whose focus is on ensuring that college girls have a way to protect themselves if they’re in danger, got a bid of $2,500 allotted to them. Their outcome on Pitch Night was thanks to advice from business teacher Mr. Phil Lascala who advised them to be enthusiastic when the time was right.
“During the academic pitch night, Lascala emphasized the importance of enthusiasm in our presentation,” junior group member Owen Kohut said. “We do have a more somber topic, so it was important for us to find the right moment to bring that out.”
The product requires a much higher start-up cost, as the electronic feature in the jewelry calls for many different aspects to come together in order to work, such as an engineer and the local police stations. They received $2,500 from the judges.
The final group, Velox Photography, is the group that took home the “Pitch Night Cup,” and were the ultimate winners. The five group members came together to create an innovative website that allows student-athletes to hire sports photographers for their athletic events.
Velox, who went into pitch night ranked fourth out of the four groups, perfected their pitch after “a lot of late-night practices,” according to group member Helena Florjancic. The hard work paid off for them, as their product was seen as the most viable by the judges.
The $5,000 they received from the judges will go towards the website design and marketing so they can continue to grow as a business. The product has already been tested at two events, and there are three photography events lined up for the future.
The four teams that advanced to Pitch Night automatically continue onto the business accelerator class senior year, where they can use their money to grow their business. With incoming investments and donations to their businesses, these four groups will continue to work throughout the summer and into next year to build their brands.
