Pitch Challenge – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:52:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png Pitch Challenge – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 Pitch Challenge Winners Revealed by Fordham Foundry https://now.fordham.edu/campus-and-community/pitch-challenge-winners-revealed-by-fordham-foundry/ Fri, 12 Apr 2024 16:42:39 +0000 https://news.fordham.edu/?p=184059 Lucas Labelle, GABELLI ’20 and Camila Magnan, the founders of Mila Mend Inc., and the winners of the Fordham Foundry’s 2024 Pitch Challenge. Photos by Hector Martinez.A women’s health company and a job placement service for people with autism were the big winners at the Fordham Foundry Pitch Challenge, held on April 11 on the Rose Hill campus.

The annual competition featured eight companies—four “general track” businesses and four social impact organizations. The Fordham-connected teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and more than 200 members of the Fordham community during the event, where $25,000 was distributed among the winners to provide seed funding and support for early-stage businesses.

Al Bartosic, director of the Fordham Foundry, said that this was “the largest field ever—we started off with 186 teams.” Through the mentoring process, the field was narrowed down to the eight finalists that made an official public pitch.

Anya Alfonsetti-Terry, a junior in the Gabelli School of Business, pitched Spike Cover

General Track Winner

Mila Mend Inc., a women’s health company that provides community and “comprehensive solutions for women seeking to balance their hormones.” The company also features multiple social media platforms with more than 600,000 members.

Founders: Lucas Labelle, GABELLI ’20 and Camila Magnan

Labelle said that one of the key strengths of the company is the accessibility of its products.

“We provide access to reliable information, we bring science-proven solutions to market and we also innovate,” he said, adding that they work with two medical advisors to create effective products.

Magnan said the idea for the company came from her own experiences trying to treat PCOS and other health issues caused by hormonal imbalances.

“My voice was not being listened to by doctors and this is where my boyfriend came to my appointments—and having a male present, I finally got listened to,” she said. “Something that he says is, ‘This affects 50% of the population but also the other 50% that live with that person—this is as much our problem as it is a woman’s [problem].’”

“It’s incredible that a male committee of judges believed in a woman-focused product, and it just shows how the space is evolving,” Magnan said.

General Track Finalists

Second Place: Spike Cover, a magnetic product that covers the bottom of track and field spikes, founded by Anya Alfonsetti-Terry, a junior in the Gabelli School of Business

Third Place: Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services, founded by David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

Fourth Place: Libri di Lucciola, a dark romance publishing house, founded by Isabella Frassetti, FCLC ’20

Shoval Liel, who will be graduating from the Gabelli School’s MBA program in May, pitched Alliza, a recruiting service that brings people with autism into the workforce

Social Impact Winner

Alliza, a recruiting service that brings people with autism into the workforce and provides them with ongoing training and resources

Founder: Shoval Liel, who will be graduating from the Gabelli School’s MBA program in May

“[The recognition] means a lot; it means that we can help more people. And I believe that what we are doing is really changing lives for autistic individuals, which is something that not many companies are doing. We’re providing help and employment opportunities …. Think about how important and critical it is to have a job.”

Social Impact Finalists

Her Migrant Grounds, a coffee cafe and community-building space that enhances the work of Fordham’s Her Migrant Hub—a resource by and for women asylum seekers that provides them with access to health care resources. Her Migrant Grounds was born from the current group involved with Her Migrant Hub, due to the leadership of women activists Sara Tekle, Marthe Kiemde, Christiane Keumo, and Nneka Ugwu; and Graduate School of Social Work students Catilin Kreutz and Jake Schefer.

Two members of the Her Migrant Grounds team posed for a picture after the Pitch Challenge.

Kids Building Wealth, a Bronx-based nonprofit that provides financial education to underserved children. Founded by Olga Baez, MC ’05, GSE ’16

Tap Thread Count, a digital platform that connects designers, seamstresses, tailors, and dressmakers to clients looking for diverse clothing offerings. Founded by Babalwa Nogwanya, GSAS ’24

People’s Choice Winner

Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services,

Founder: David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

“The Foundry’s an incredible resource that has been there through every aspect of my entrepreneurial journey,” he said, adding that the process of participating in the Pitch Challenge was “exciting, fulfilling, and unbelievably beneficial.”

David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business pitched Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services.
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Supported by Fordham Foundry, Theater Grads Live Their Dream by Starting a Business https://now.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/supported-by-fordham-foundry-theater-grads-live-their-dream-by-starting-a-business/ Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:15:16 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=174570 Image: ShutterstockBack when she was looking at colleges, meeting the people who ran various undergraduate theater programs, Aurora Winger found that many were lukewarm about her plans to major in theater while developing her business sense by studying economics.

Fordham, however, was “unique in how excited they were by the possibility,” she said. “Fordham was like, ‘If you want to do this, let’s make it happen.’ I think that made me feel very supported coming here.”

Aurora Winger
Aurora Winger

Coming to the University was the first step on her path to co-founding a theater production company with three other Fordham Theatre students seeking to launch arts-related careers. Another critical stop on that path? The Fordham Foundry—an arm of the University that helps students of any major start viable, sustainable companies that often meet social needs as well.

“The Foundry has been an amazing resource that came into our lives,” said Winger, a rising senior in Fordham College at Lincoln Center who is double majoring in economics and theatre design and production. Learning about the Foundry’s existence, she said, “was really, really exciting.”

‘Our Little Adventure’

Last fall marked the 10th anniversary of the Foundry, the Fordham entrepreneurship hub that has helped many a business get off the ground, including some with revenue in the millions. Students as well as alumni bring their business ideas and get guidance from a network that includes faculty as well as New York businesspeople.

Our Little Adventure crew members during film production
Pedro Gonzalez (left) and Cason Doyle. Provided photo

Participants also find support of the intangible variety. “They might think that they’re out there all by themselves, but there’s a community of people at Fordham that are also interested in launching startup ideas,” said Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry’s executive director.

The Foundry is in the midst of an endowment campaign to support programming that is drawing more and more interest from across the University. The Foundry helps aspiring entrepreneurs from all fields of study—business students, English majors, graduate students in law and social work, and others. They learn from one another at Foundry events like the coaching sessions leading up to its annual Pitch Challenge competition, which offers prize money for the winning startups.

That’s where Winger and three other students started the process for founding their film and theater production company—now titled Our Little Adventure Productions LLC—during the 2021–2022 academic year. The idea of founding a business grew out of their efforts to fund the production of films written by three of the students—Cason Doyle, Victoria Fanning, and Pedro Gonzalez, all of whom graduated from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in 2022.

Learning the Language of Business

Through the Pitch Challenge, they learned how to analyze their competition, draw up a business plan, and refine their pitch to investors. Most important, perhaps, the sessions prompted them to reflect on their goals.

Our Little Adventure crew members at work
Our Little Adventure crew members at work. Provided photo

“We realized that we were all really passionate about bringing [forth]other people’s work, who otherwise would not have the opportunity to share that with anyone,” Gonzalez said.

They decided that with the money their company earns from supporting plays and films, they would not only produce their own works but also support productions that help young directors, producers, and actors get that first career foothold.

They’ve served nearly a dozen clients so far, many of them off-Broadway theater productions that needed video recording services so the plays could be viewed remotely, a growing practice that took root during the pandemic, Winger said.

Helping Artists Tell New Stories

The company is still a few years away from providing the four of them with a full-time income, Winger said. But in the meantime, it’s providing adventures—like a paying job that took them to New York’s Fire Island last June, where they assisted with filming a documentary about drag queen performances and the “drag repair” crews that kept the drag artists looking their best.

Our Little Adventure crew members
(l to r, starting at top): Pedro Gonzalez, Victoria Fanning, Cason Doyle, actors Grace Walworth and Saman Peyman, and Aurora Winger, making a pitstop during a filming trip to Austin, Texas. Provided photo

“I never thought I would film a documentary about drag queens, but I was so excited about it,” Fanning said. “We have all these exciting memories now within the company that we probably wouldn’t have been able to have, or people we wouldn’t have been able to meet or stories we wouldn’t have been able to tell.”

For the students, the Foundry builds on the sense of welcome and support they received when they first visited Fordham. “It was the place where I felt most encouraged … by the faculty and the people that were working there,” Gonzalez said. “So it was a really easy choice for me.”

He’s grateful for the opportunity to help others entering the theater profession and also for the possibility of making a living in a field he loves, one that “can make people more aware of others around us and perhaps inspire us to be a little more accepting and kind.”

“I think this career encourages empathy,” he said. “And I think empathy’s something that becomes more and more necessary, especially now.”

Learn more about the Fordham Foundry and give in support of its $1.5 million campaign, which is halfway complete.

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Student Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Contest Carries On Virtually https://now.fordham.edu/business-and-economics/student-entrepreneurs-pitch-contest-carries-on-virtually/ Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:44:45 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=137439 When Hayley Leviashvili, LAW ’20 was in her first year at Fordham Law School, she wanted to pursue a career that combined human rights and entertainment. So she cold-emailed entertainment lawyers to ask if she could pick their brains for ideas. That landed her an internship at Warner Brothers and showed her the value of reaching out to specialists in the law field. But it also gave her a good idea.

In March 2019, Leviashvili was still reaching out to lawyers for advice, and connected with a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrencies like BitCoin.

“He said, ‘you know, I’m a sole practitioner, I can definitely use some legal work. I could use legal assistance from a law student. I don’t have the overhead to be able to bring you on full time, but would you be willing to do project-based work for me?’” she said.

A Business Idea Blossoms

And with that, GigLaw was born.

Hayley-Leviashvili
Hayley Leviashvili
Contributed photo

Leviashvili went on to recruit nine more clients like that lawyer, and she was able to use the revenue to completely pay off the tuition of her final year of law school. She’s now ready to scale up to include others, having won the Fordham Foundry’s fourth annual pitch challenge. The competition, which culminated with a live Zoom meeting on April 4 in which finalists made their cases to judges, featured 115 participants from 38 teams from around the University.

Because contestants were unable to make their pitches in person, the first round of the competition were held asynchronously, with teams submitting three-minute-long videos that judges could weigh in on at their convenience.

In the end, the teams that came out on top were Leviashvili’s Gig Law, SwapUP, from Gabelli School of Business MBA students Jaz Foster and Liz Stack, BeautiMaps Technologies LLC from Gabelli School of Business MBA student Brandon Adamson, and Shadow Me, from Fordham College at Lincoln Center freshman Alex DeVito.

While SwapUp describes itself as a “circular fashion company” that allows consumers to swap special occasion clothing based on a credit system, BeautiMaps is a global freelancing platform tailored to the wellness and make-up industry. Shadow Me is job shadowing platform that connects students with career professionals to help them find their true calling through on the job experiences.

The social impact award was given to North Node, a platform for connecting volunteers to nonprofit institutions run by Gabelli School EMBA students Hallie Anderson, Emily Penzo, and Doug Wallner.

The winners were announced at the end of the final round of the competition on April 4, and invited to a May 1 meeting with Fordham Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., and Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business.

Harnessing the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry’s executive director, said the Foundry briefly considered canceling the pitch contest because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, he said, he realized that entrepreneurial spirit is exactly what is needed now.

“In this environment, everyone’s an entrepreneur, right? Because no matter what you’re doing, you’re improvising on the fly, you’re pivoting to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and you’re trying to see what’s effective,” he said.

“Whether you’re trying to reopen a university or start up a business, all of these things really come to the fore right now.”

students talking to each other in a screen shot from Zoom
On May 1, winners of the pitch competition met with Fordham provost Dennis Jacobs to tell him about their business ideas.

Although the Foundry had no experience with holding a large event via Zoom, Bartosic said he was very proud of how it ultimately pulled it off. Among the tools they employed to keep it interesting was an interactive tool that gave audience members an invisible pot of $25,000 to invest in whoever they were most interested in.

He also found a silver lining in the new format: access to representatives from private industry that might not have been able to make it if the competition was held in person.

“We had two judges in California, we had a judge in the first round who was in Hawaii. We got the benefit of their expertise and insight, and these were people we’d asked before if they could come and be a judge, and they said their schedule wouldn’t allow for it,” he said.

Equally exciting, he said, was the breadth of talent that the contest drew from the University. He credited the Office of the Provost for spreading the word via several emailed solicitations earlier in the year. The pitch challenge drew teams from Fordham Law School, the undergraduate and graduate divisions of the Gabelli School of Business, and in a first, the Graduate School of Social Service. Leviashvili is the first Law School student to win the contest.

“It really changed the scope of the playing field,” he said.

Very few of the entries required major retooling in light of the pandemic, which also gives him hope, he said

“All four of the businesses that were in the finals were really all about using technology that makes problem-solving more efficient. I think that’s kind of a foreshadowing of what’s happening now, post-COVID-19, which is figuring out how to use new virtual realities to get some of these needs met,” he said.

A Boost of Confidence

Leviashvili said she knew that the success she’s already had with GIGLaw factored in her win. success. But it would have been worth going through the process even if she hadn’t won. She plans to used her $9,500 prize money to fund the design and launch of an online platform in the fall that will connect students with firms interested in 13 areas such as intellectual property law, start-up law, trusts and wills, bankruptcy, energy law, entertainment law, and technology law.

“There’s no resource for law students who don’t take the traditional route to figure out and get experience, and on the other side of it, there’s no resource for small firms and practitioners to get high-quality talent to do project-based work for them,” she said.

She said praise from judges from places like Adobe and venture capital funds was the “nail in the coffin” for a more “traditional route” she might have once been considering, like corporate law. “It gave me this boost of confidence that I absolutely wouldn’t have had before.”

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Pitch Perfect: Students Compete for Top Prizes at Foundry Pitch Challenge https://now.fordham.edu/business-and-economics/pitch-perfect-students-compete-for-top-prizes-at-foundry-pitch-challenge/ Thu, 06 Apr 2017 17:01:56 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=66590 The Fordham Foundry gave new meaning to the expression “elevator pitch” at its first-ever Pitch Challenge.

“In most cases, whether you’re speaking to a customer, a business partner, or an investor, they just don’t sit still for a 20-minute presentation,” said Chris Meyer, Ph.D., interim executive director of the Fordham Foundry and clinical assistant professor at the Gabelli School of Business. “So it’s important to deliver a [business]pitch efficiently and concisely.”

Sponsored by the foundry and BNP Paribas, the Pitch Challenge, which was held on April 1 at the Lincoln Center campus, gave Fordham students an opportunity to pitch their businesses and social-enterprise ideas to an accomplished panel of judges, including a number of professionals who work in startups and venture financing. Over 100 students competed for a stake in $10,000 in prize money, which was awarded among four teams delivering the top pitches. There were 41 teams of students who participated in all, and a total of 25 judges, many of who were Fordham alums.

Among the judges were:

  • Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D., associate dean of undergraduates studies at Gabelli;
  • Christine Janssen, Ph.D., director of the entrepreneurship program at Gabelli;
  • Samantha Batista, an associate at the Partnership Fund for New York City;
  • Hervé Duteil, the managing director & CSR regional coordinator for BNP Paribas
  • Chuck Pettid, an advisor/partner at Republic.co and a general partner at RainmakeME; and
  • Stephen Blackwell, the chief strategy officer of Billboard Magazine.

 

“The judges’ input was invaluable,” said Albert Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, an entrepreneur-in-residence at the foundry, who organized the Pitch Challenge. “They hear business pitches on an ongoing basis so they have a lot of experience looking at and vetting ideas, and determining whether or not they’re viable or scalable opportunities.”

The grand prize of $4,500 was awarded to Pathos creator Anthony Parente, GABELLI ’19, and his teammates Shelda Zajmi, FCRH ’19, Ryan Zablocki, GABELLI ’17, and Samuel Knoche FCRH ’20; they were also awarded the People’s Choice prize of $500. Pathos allows Apple Watch users to create comprehensive conversation profiles of the people they meet.

Parente said the prize money would cover operational costs since the app is currently in a beta phase.

“We believe that we must act quickly to take advantage of a small window of opportunity, and that if we do so successfully, we will be able to transform and improve the way people take notes and remember their social interactions,” he said.

James Kenna, FCLC ’19, a theater major, won second place for his web service idea College Callbacks, which aims to provide high school seniors with the resources and support to confidently audition for college theater programs.

“Students’ acceptances to [theater]schools ride on the callbacks, and everyone deserves to audition feeling at their best,” he said.

The creators of KindMind, an app allowing users to track and improve their mental wellness, came in third place while Ventir, a modular backpack company, rounded out the top four winning teams.

A toolbox of resources

In the weeks leading up to the Pitch Challenge, students took part in three mentor/coaching sessions at the Rose Hill campus. The first preparatory session, which began in February, was focused on exploring the students’ ideas; the second, held in early March, provided feedback on the students’ rough pitches; and the third session, at the end of March, helped students put the finishing touches on their pitches.

Through hands-on experiences in entrepreneurship, educational programming, and mentorship opportunities led by experienced entrepreneurs like Bartosic, the foundry also seeks to promote experiential learning.

“We provide a toolbox of resources that enable students to take their business ideas as far as they would like,” he said.

The Pitch Challenge sparked participation from students of all majors in different schools across the University, including Fordham Law, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Fordham Colleges at Rose Hill and Lincoln Center, and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies.

“Good ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere,” said Bartosic, who has worked in private equity, financial services, consumer products, and technology, among other industries. “In fact, some of the creativity that other students bring is really helpful to our business school students.”

Inspiring innovation and growth

Meyer said foundry events like the Pitch Challenge aim to help students develop courage and confidence in their ideas while teaching them how to think on their feet and accept criticism.

“Learning the process of creating an idea, working with people to shape it, and trying to present and persuade are right in line with our mission to help our students grow through the process of becoming innovators,” he said.

The entrepreneurial mindset that students have cultivated through the foundry has been worthwhile, particularly for non-business students, participants said.

“By developing my entrepreneurial skills I am hoping to not only supplement my skills and create more opportunities as an actor, but provide a means of sustainable longevity for my income,” said Kenna.

For Parente, the Pitch Challenge taught him that delivering a business pitch under time constraints isn’t the only thing that can make or break a startup idea.

“Ultimately, you have to make sure people can see the vision and believe that your team has what it takes to make it a reality,” he said.

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