Mercer learners pitch their business tips at Mercer’s 2022 Elevator Pitch Competition

Mercer learners pitch their business tips at Mercer’s 2022 Elevator Pitch Competition

Mercer enterprise learners on the Macon and Atlanta campuses pitched their strategies for non-revenue and for-gain businesses in the 2022 Elevator Pitch Level of competition on April 1 for a $500 prize to assist build their tips.

“Elevator pitches” are noteworthy for currently being about two minutes prolonged, and are intended to seize an entrepreneur’s means to explain their organization principle at an arranged and efficient speed. The entrepreneur should be in a position to wander into a hypothetical elevator, satisfy a likely investor, and express the essence of their small business by the time the elevator reaches the 20th flooring to preserve buyers intrigued to agenda a further meeting for additional facts.

The competitors was open up to all pupils at the moment enrolled at Mercer University, equally undergraduate and graduate, from any campus. There were 19 submissions this year with judges deciding upon the leading eight finalists to present very last Friday over Zoom. The judges then asked each and every presenter inquiries and selected a winner from a for-financial gain business enterprise and a non-financial gain company.

Briana S. Stenard, the assistant professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Stetson-Hatcher College of Organization, was the school advisor for the Elevator Pitch Competition for the 3rd year in a row and relished observing all the pitches past week.

“I adore seeing learners present their tips,” Stenard claimed. “I know it can take a great deal of courage to current your tips to a panel of judges, so I am just so very pleased of our learners. I am constantly so impressed by the large top quality of their displays. I adore looking at them share their passions and test to solve crucial challenges.”

Stenard started off the opposition in 2020 to enable college students pitch their suggestions and get feedback from mentors and judges ahead of putting with each other a complete enterprise approach. The levels of competition is intended to allow college students to feel as a result of their strategies and determine if it may be a thing they would want to pursue in the foreseeable future.

“The Mercer Innovation Center’s aim is to help our Mercer college student entrepreneurs as a result of mentorship and funding,” Stenard stated. “This levels of competition accomplishes both goals by offering learners opinions on their concepts and some start out-up dollars to assistance get their thoughts off the ground.”

Stephanie Troemel, a graduate university student working on an MBA with a emphasis in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the for-profit business winner of the competitors, 1st acquired about the competitiveness from Stenard and was intrigued by the opportunity to exercise in a small-stakes small business placing although obtaining responses for her pitch. She also practically missed it because of to well being worries but was happy she could take part just in time for the competition.

“I truly savored listening to the other student’s pitches,” Troemel stated. “The other finalists have awesome ideas and are definitely passionate and fired up about them. I hope they are capable to shift forward with their concepts!

Her profitable pitch was for MakeNow, an app that takes craft sample PDFs and tends to make them cell-helpful and easy to use which would save time, paper, and stress for a thriving interactive knowledge. Coming into the levels of competition, Troemel was understandably nervous about giving her pitch.

“This was something that terrified me!” Troemel reported. “I am not a massive admirer of public talking and it ordinarily usually takes me a excellent 10 minutes to get at ease in front of a place.”

Troemel, nonetheless, found her pitch to be a thing she was passionate about and believed would deliver a good deal of positivity to the planet. This designed it sense worthy of it to drive through on presenting in order to obtain feedback from specialists.

Holly Burke, an MBA student and the non-profit enterprise pitch winner, also appreciated listening to the other pitches and was able to understand a ton from the other pupils and judges.

“I imagine participating in events like this is a excellent thought,” Burke said. “I realized a lot through the course of action.” and it’s also a excellent way to shift outdoors of your comfort and ease zone.”

Burke’s notion was Intentional Freedom, a non-gain software meant to educate prior offenders on correct money management, saving routines, budgeting practices and investing to give them the capacity and chance to choose manage of their finances and futures and allow for them to make alterations in direction of a pro-social lifestyle.

Burke initially submitted her pitch for excess credit score, but then entered the competition with Dr. Stenard’s encouragement.

“I would like I experienced participated in occasions like this previously in my instruction journey,” Burke reported. “It’s a good way to shift outside the house of your consolation zone.”

With the competitors coming to an close this year, Stenard hopes that extra college students from Mercer will participate in potential competitions. She thinks that you never have to only be a small business scholar to have a good thought for a organization.

There will be a stick to-up event, the Up coming Large Concept level of competition, which is a entire business pitch competitiveness event that all students will be in a position to use for. The Next Large Idea has extended pitches and larger sized prizes and even much more encouragement.