Apr. 24—Two student entrepreneur teams from the University of Oklahoma competed in a Shark Tank-style competition worth $50,000.
The event, e-Fest and the Schulze Entrepreneurship Challenge, put 25 of the top entrepreneurial teams in the country against each other in Minneapolis at the University of St. Thomas.
Danielle Campeau, associate dean of the Schultz School of entrepreneurship at St. Thomas, said the weekend event is important as it puts together like-minded entrepreneurs to bounce ideas off each other.
The total amount of money distributed was $210,000.
“It’s been really inspirational to see the variety of ideas that we have, and we’re just proud to support entrepreneurial students and help them take their ideas to the next level,” Campeau said. “We bring together student teams, mentors, advisers, and we have a series of workshops before the competition and after the competition.”
She said she was impressed by the teams from OU.
“We love having students from a variety of universities who bring all of their diverse perspectives with them,” she said.
Joadel Genuzio, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, came with Luke Carrell, a business major at OU. The two of them pitched their business Side Coach Sports, a website that connects college athletes to youth athletes with the purpose of soliciting private lessons.
“We created a website called sidecoachsports.com, and if you go there, you will see that the front page has available lessons,” Genuizio said. “The front page has available lessons so anyone can hop on the website and filter out college athletes in their area by zip code or university. It’s geocoded.”
He said the website is very easy and free to join, users just need to pay for lessons.
“Once the college athlete makes an account, they can go into their portal and they can start creating lessons that are posted on the website using our calendar system,” he said.
Currently, the website offers college athlete coaching services from Oklahoma and Texas, but Genuizio said he would like to expand the website’s offerings to the whole country. He said the training he received at the e-Fest and the Schulze Entrepreneurship Challenge can help his team make their dream a reality.
The tournament was competitive, with 150 teams having applied for entry, but only 25 were selected. Genuizio said his team had to submit a 10-page request and perform a seven-minute pitch presentation just to be accepted to the competition.
Once in Minneapolis, Genuizio and other competitors had to make a 90-second sales pitch on Thursday, followed by a full Shark Tank-style pitch to a panel of judges on Saturday.
He said team members were also broken up and put into new teams who were then given the task of solving a hypothetical entrepreneurial problem.
Reid Smith, a senior from OU who studies entrepreneurship, went to Minneapolis with his team to pitch his business ThinkPot.
“ThinkPot is a self-sustaining plant and flower tool that analyzes plant health by using technology. It records and measures P.H. levels and moisture of the soil and root health of the plant,” Smith said. “The hardest part about gardening and growing plants is the sprouting phase to the growing phase.”
He said people waste money every year on plants that they kill by overwatering, underwatering, or for some other reason.
ThinkPot is an 8-inch by 9-inch pot with sensors that connect with bluetooth technology to an app that users download on their smart devices. The sensors indicate the health of a plant and then propagate advice on how to care for the plant based on artificial intelligence technology.
“Once your plant is healthy enough to be transferred to your garden, your app will tell you,” Reid said. “It’s actually made out of recycled plastic. Our company is green. This is just one of the ways that we are changing the game for sustainable business models.”
He said ThinkPot targets gardening plants in the sapling phase, like basil, rosemary, tomatoes, flowers, or other garden plants.
Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.
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