Princeton Pitch tests ideas

“Get ready,” Princeton Entrepreneurship Club co-director of competitions Chenyu Zheng ’12 said each time the giant timer in Dodds Auditorium ticked down to zero. About 150 audience members varying in dress from full suits to jeans and T-shirts waited, eager to hear Princeton’s next big business idea.

This assembly set the scene on Wednesday evening at Princeton Pitch, an annual event hosted by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club.

“Princeton Pitch challenges students to come up with a business and explain to a panel of judges what that business does and why they deserve an investment, all in 60 seconds,” E-Club co-president Ryan Shea ’12 said.

The competition was judged by a panel of seven experts, including visiting professor John Danner and engineering professor Craig Arnold. Experts Joe Allegra, Jason Glickman, Bert Navarrete and Greg Olson also judged the teams on their ideas, the market that the product or business would serve, the proposed business model and the appeal of the presentation itself.

The 49 teams competed for one of two $1,000 prizes in either business or social entrepreneurship. The prizes were sponsored by the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education and Princeton ReachOut 56-81-06.

Chris Payne ’13 and Adlai Felser ’13 pitched a Princeton-specific app called The Street in Your Hand that would inform students of which clubs on the Street were open and if parties were worth the trip to the Street.

Other pitches were targeted toward college students nationwide.

“If you look in any dining hall right now, a lot of people are eating alone,” Pietro Rea ’12 said. “The sad thing is that a lot of their friends are also eating elsewhere, alone. Whenever you are lonely and hungry, EatWithMe will use innovation and social media to match you up with friends who are lonely and hungry as well.”

But both winning teams pitched products outside of the university market.

Social track winners Ashley Eberhart ’13 and Aunna Wilson ’12 pitched PenniPads, a banana fiber, low-cost sanitary napkin.

Two summers ago, Wilson spent three months in India and realized menstruation was a taboo topic in the region. An economics and gender studies major, Wilson came back to Princeton to do further research and realized that there were no viable, cheap options available for Indian women who were menstruating.

Eberhart and Wilson joined forces with Rebecca Scharfstein ’12, Alexandra Deprez ’12 and Derek Grego ’12 this fall to complete an assignment in EGR 495: Special Topics in Entrepreneurship — Ventures to Address Global Challenges with Danner. For this assignment, they had to come up with a product and create a YouTube video promoting it.

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“We decided we should use Aunna’s idea of providing cheap sanitary pads for women because it was something that was innovative, a little bit uncomfortable, a little out there but also very memorable,” Eberhart said.

Meanwhile, business track winners Max Huc ’13 and Trevor Wilkins ’13 pitched GradeZone Points, a website that encourages students to get good grades and perform community service by providing discounts to local and national businesses through a point system.

Neither Frimpong nor Wilkins is a stranger to business or business competitions. Huc said GradeZone Points began in a Forbes dorm during finals week and that they initially funded it by winning competitions similar to Princeton Pitch and with their own money.

“We are just pitch hungry, and we wanted to get our faces into the Princeton community. Plus, Princeton Pitch is good practice,” Huc said.

Practice is one of the goals of Princeton Pitch, according to E-Club co-president Alex Landon ’12.

“Princeton Pitch is our most high-energy event. It is pretty amazing to see almost 50 business ideas in under two hours,” Landon said. “It is always so fast paced, and there is always great audience turnout. Princeton Pitch is great for the mission of the E-Club and allowing Princeton students to see entrepreneurship as a viable career option.”