2023 Kittrell competition winners to enter tourism, sports supplement and wedding industries
The Kittrell Pitch Competition winners earned $16,000 in prizes for innovative new companies for Nashville.
Janel Shoun-Smith |
(l to r) Dr. Jeff Cohu, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, with competition winners: Grant O'Callaghan, Kinley Boyd and Lily Corley. O'Callaghan's teammate, Nick Regas, presented virtually at the event..
Commemorative speeches, a local Great British Baking Show-style experience and a reliable, trustworthy sports supplement were the top innovative ideas at the annual Kittrell Pitch Competition, a contest where students deliver a business or product pitch to compete for funding to help bring their idea to reality.
The spring finals, where seven students delivered 10-minute pitches to a panel of judges, was held Wednesday night, April 12, and students Lily Corley, Kinley Boyd, Nick Regas (who presented virtually at the event) and Grant O'Callaghan snagged the top three prizes.
Enerza
Grant O'Callaghan
Regas and O'Callaghan, the founders of Enerza, won the $8,000 first-place prize, to be used as capital to energize the success of their brainchild, a safe, effective energy-boosting supplement.
O’Callaghan and Regas were both athletes during their undergraduate years in college and both became frustrated with energy boosting supplements. Most of the time they either didn’t provide a long enough energy boost or they caused a physical and emotional crash after they wore off, said O’Callahgan during his pitch.
“I came to realize that the product I wanted didn’t exist,” he said. “They all had too much caffeine, or they lacked enough amino acids or they had too many side effects.”
The two students set out to develop a new supplement that was safe, effective, did not use artificial sweeteners and used a modest amount of caffeine. The product they developed qualifies for the NSF endorsement for sports supplements.
With plenty of contacts in the world in collegiate athletics, Regas and O'Callaghan have already tested more than 1,000 samples of their product and tweaked the formula based on user feedback. They have made a factory order of the first order of the product and plan to sell it through web sales and through a potential partnership with a local athletic shoes store.
Based on feedback received from the judges at the first round of pitches in the fall, the pair re-named the product Enerza and revamped their packaging.
The judges agreed that Enerza is primed to score big in the rapidly growing sports supplement market and awarded the students first place for their product.
The Great Music City Bake
Kinley Boyd
Boyd was awarded the second-place $5,000 prize for her idea of The Great Music City Bake, a pop-up, all-ingredients-included baking experience to be targeted to tourists in Nashville, especially bachelorette groups.
Boyd’s idea was sparked on a trip to London where she and her mother signed up to participate in The Great London Bake, a fun, low-stakes baking challenge based on the BBC’s phenomenally popular The Great British Baking Show.
With few experience-based tourist activities (such as escape rooms, movies and Top Golf) in Nashville, Boyd wants to tap into Nashville’s huge bachelorette and girls’ weekend market to provide a new, easy and fun experience for groups on vacation.
The Great Music City Bake would provide all the ingredients, utensils and a recipe for teams of two to enjoy a 90-minute baking and decorating challenge. Eventual add-ons could include professional photos, a customized apron and spoon, or a video of the participants baking, said Boyd.
At the moment, Boyd plans to partner with local restaurants and event locations to host the pop-up event, but eventually would like to have her own brick-and-mortar location.
Bespoke Expressions
Lily Corley
Corley won the third-place $3,000 prize for her creation, Bespoke Expressions, a company to provide customized wedding vows and funeral speeches for those with stage fright or high anxiety during a stressful, busy time in their lives.
Corley cited two current trends as fuel for her new company: brides and grooms are moving away from canned scripts for their ceremony, with 44% writing their own vows, and more people are planning their own funeral services in advance.
Whereas most of the companies providing such services are online only (and could soon be replaced by artificial intelligence, she noted), Corley plans to provide face-to-face, personalized service. In the future, her company could move into scripting entire wedding ceremonies, creating tribute videos, holding workshops or creating memorial items.
About the Kittrell Pitch Competition
The Kittrell Pitch Competition fall round is open to all eligible undergraduate and graduate students from any major. Contenders deliver a five-minute pitch of their business model to a panel of judges. In the first round, the first-place winner receives $2,500; second and third place winners receive prizes of $1,500 and $1,000, respectively.
Winners at any level receive automatic qualification for the final round in the spring pitch competition and advising from the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
The spring round takes the pitch to the next level, with a 10-minute pitch and larger prizes. Winning teams are awarded cash prizes, the first-place team receives personal advising from a mentor with relevant industry experience and all winners receive advising from the Center for Entrepreneurship.
The competition is made possible by generous donations from alumnus and member of Lipscomb’s Board of Trustees Marty Kittrell. Kittrell is a long-time supporter of Lipscomb’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and donates in honor of his father, William B. Kittrell, who was a 1941 graduate of Lipscomb.