Pay ‘N’ Park, Cropsticks and Drew’s List take top prizes at the 2016 Business Pitch
Seven semi-final teams pitched their ideas to a five judge panel at the April 11th Business Pitch. The teams competed for cash and office space at IndieDesk, a creative hub for tech, creative and freelance entrepreneurs. Pay ‘N’ Park, a web application helping drivers find parking spots on the go took first place, winning $3,000 and 2 months at IndieDesk. Atit Patel, Harsh Patel, Yash Patel and Kevin Shah hope to solve a parking crisis in major Indian cities by helping drivers find available parking spots and property owners rent their parking spaces out for extra cash.
Second place went to cropsticks, premium chopsticks with an eco-friendly twist, winning $2,000 and 1 month at IndieDesk. Mylen Fe Yamamoto and her team Jay Chang, Shannon Takeba and Ron Tansingco created a patent-pending disposable chopstick made entirely from sustainable bamboo with a holder attached to keep the tips from touching the table.
Andrew Aquino, Kevin Mowers and Christian Noble presented from the Wild Card teams to take third with Drew’s List a mobile app to help students buy, sell, and trade their textbooks. They earned $1,000 and a week at IndieDesk. Congratulations to this year’s winners and to all the teams participating for an amazing effort!
For the fifth year in a row the College of Business & Economics challenged all Cal State LA students to become more innovative and take on an entrepreneurial spirit. The Business Pitch allows students to experience a facet of business that extends beyond their respective majors which will become an invaluable tool after completing their journey at Cal State LA.
Led by Entrepreneur in Residence Barney Santos, all semi-finalist teams received five weeks of coaching from Management faculty and members of the PCC Small Business Development Center leading up to the pitch. At the event our experienced judges Zuhey Espinoza, Deputy Director of Policy at Cal State LA, Jesse Torres, Deputy Director – Small Business Advocate at the California Governor’s Office, Adriana Martinez, Director of External Affairs, AT&T California, Sal Mendoza, Senior Vice President at City National Bank – Community Reinvestment Department and Laszlo Gyorffy, President, Enterprise Development Group probed the entrepreneurs’ pitch proposals for problems and provided advice before making the final selections.
The event was supported by Dean Goodrich, Associate Dean Hsieh, several members of the College staff and ECCO, the entrepreneurship student organization in the College. A huge thank you to the event sponsors Ace Fence Co., AT&T, Boeing, City National Bank, DelTerra, EDG, IndieDesk, So Cal Gas, Nongshim, and the Los Angeles Chapter of the SBDC.
For more information about all the teams.