Wright State students will compete for startup funds in annual entrepreneurial competition

Students will present their business plans a panel of judges during Wright Venture on April 10 from 2 to 4 p.m. in 160 Rike Hall.

Wright State University students with promising new business ideas will compete for startup funds during Wright Venture, the annual entrepreneurial competition hosted by the Raj Soin College of Business.

Five students in the Raj Soin College of Business will present their business plans on Wednesday, April 10, from 2 to 4 p.m. in 160 Rike Hall. The event is open to the university community and the public. More information is available at wright.edu/wrightventure.

The students will pitch their business plans to a panel of experienced business executives called the Wolves. The winner of the competition will receive $5,000 in startup funding.

Wright Venture is an entrepreneurial competition modeled after the reality television competition “Shark Tank.”

Makenzie Burgan, an entrepreneurship major and president of the Entrepreneurship Club, said, “Wright Venture has become one of my favorite things about the College of Business here at Wright State. One reason it’s special is because it’s a great confidence booster for our students. Few students believe that their ideas are good enough, or that they have the resources or access to experts to help them, but Wright Venture changes that.”

The students’ projects are:

• Sam (Healthy) Snacks, an alternative to overly engineered snacks, by Tarek Hamed, a supply chain management major
• The Elite Clean residential and commercial cleaning service, by Marvin Mbah, an entrepreneurship major
• Macaw Marketing, a digital marketing agency geared toward small businesses, by Victoria Smith, a marketing major
• Professor Lynny, a pacifier that is shaped differently for better support and will not constantly fall out of a baby’s mouth, by Michael Mathews, an MBA student
• Taggage, a luggage transport service, by Andrew Wiseman, an entrepreneurship major

The goal of Wright Venture is to encourage entrepreneurial thinking and activity among students by helping them develop their business plans. The program also allows students to put into practice the lessons they learn in the classroom at Wright State.

The program creates an experience similar to an actual business startup, including mentorship, networking, creative idea development, product design, service creation, financial management, business planning and marketing assistance.

“Wright Venture provides our students with a platform to bring their ideas to reality,” said Kendall Goodrich, Ph.D., professor of marketing and chair of the School of Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Management.

Students have prepared their presentations for the April 10 competition through a series of entrepreneurial workshops, led by Wright State faculty and local experts, on business planning, finance, marketing and business operations.

During the competition, students also receive detailed feedback about their presentations and business ideas from the judges.

The judges for this year’s competition are Lesley Ott, chief operating officer at James Investment Research; Jonah Sandler, founder of Scene75; and Beth Savage, former owner and CEO of PQ Systems.

“Wright Venture is one of the tools we want to leverage in the Raj Soin College of Business to make our entrepreneur major a flagship program within the college,” said interim Dean Donald Hopkins.

Past Wright Venture winners include Galatune, a strategy card game, Tumble, an on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning service, and WrinkleFrinkle, which creates handmade decorations and metal-stamped jewelry and keychains.

The Wright Venture program is funded by Barry James/James Investment Research and organized by the School of Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Management in the Raj Soin College of Business and the Entrepreneurship Club.