In March, five student entrepreneur teams from Trinity each won a $5,000 prize in the first round of the Stumberg Venture Competition. That is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a new adventure.
With the $5000 seed money, the five teams will stay on Trinity campus over the summer to participate in the Accelerator Program, working 40-hour weeks with pay of $10 per hour (in addition to the prize money). Each team has a unique business idea, for-profit or non-profit, which they hope to further materialize through the summer program.
Robert Magee and Chris Stewart, both sophomores, are moving forward with ProjecTech, which is a pop out turn signal for motorcycles. It projects a triangle while making a turn to alert other drivers. Magee, a motorcyclist himself, was in an accident and wanted to improve the safety of the bikes.
Andrew Koob, a freshman, came up with Skate Cuff, which is a lock for motorized skateboards that can link up to any pole or something similar to prevent theft and the inconvenience of having to carry it around.
Escuela de Estella is a program that aims to provide opportunities to students in the Southwest ISD to learn how to play mariachi. Estella Frausto, along with Marlee Jackson and Victoria Shirey, are all sophomores who will be attempting to make this program get its feet off the ground.
Freshman Chryslyn Perkins’ idea is heArtful, a non-profit organization aimed at building interactive art pieces for special needs kids. The goal is to give these students an opportunity to engage with art in interactive ways that will benefit their learning abilities. Perkins hopes to make connections with local autism centers to help create more art pieces.
The last group is StorySpread, a smart phone app that allows users to create visual stories, such as comics, with pre-drawn assets and text boxes that allows its users to drag and drop to create stories. The app is especially designed to attract teenagers and young adults. The company plans to design apps for both Apple and Android devices, as well as having a website.
Dr. Luis Martinez, the director for innovation and entrepreneurship at Trinity, takes a lot of pride in how serious each team must be in putting out a legitimate idea. “Our students are all in. They are working hard on building a business and a non-profit,” he says. These student entrepreneurs are left alone. The Stumberg program provides a very strong mentorship program that includes 64 entrepreneurs, service providers, investors, and business owners from all over the United States to advise the Trinity students.
The Stumberg Venture Competition has been in operation for five years, and Martinez has overseen its growth. “We’ve seen the level of sophistication of the initiatives and ventures students are approaching us with increase each year,” he says. “We have students from every single major: engineering, business, as well as arts and music, biochemistry and biology.”
With the summer Accelerator Program, the selected teams can have more than two months solely focusing on developing their business idea. “It is a very structured, formal ten-week program where students start and form a real company, so they go through all the legal and accounting aspects,” says Martinez. The goal is to have a real company up and running by the end of the summer, which then will compete in the final round of the Stumberg competition in October.
But the program is more than about the competition. It is an opportunity for each group to identify the weaknesses of their ventures so they can address them early on. The summer is also time for the teams to find who their real customer is. “Sometime students may come in and think, ‘Well, my customer is this kind of niche,’ and the summer gives the opportunity to really sit down with potential customers and find out if they really want that to happen,” says Martinez.
Robert Magee, one of the ProjecTech team members, has already been working with venture capitalists and bankers in an attempt to make connections. “I am excited about the summer program, just to continue those relationships with potential business partners and get tons of feedback,” he said.
With Skate Cuff, Andrew Koob is looking to begin his ‘Kickstarter’ campaign and actually start to get some revenue. “I’m just excited to just have my own company and not having to work for anyone else,” says Koob.
These burgeoning student entrepreneurs are setting their eyes on the $25,000 grand prize in October by winning the final round of Stumberg Venture Competition.
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