Business students win first place in local reverse pitch competition
Student team pitched an urban farm and juice shop as an economically viable business that also had a positive social impact.
Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078 |
from left to right, Aidan Miller, rising sophomore; Rebecca Ahlberg (’20), AJ Powell (’20); and Matthew Stuart, rising junior.
Four Lipscomb students took first place in Belmont University’s inaugural Enactus Reverse Pitch Competition with six competing teams from universities in the Southeast this spring.
Teams in a reverse pitch competition start with a problem or opportunity and work toward a proposed solution. In this case, the opportunity involved the economic development of a piece of property in North Nashville and a proposed solution that was both economically viable and had a positive social impact.
The team of Aidan Miller, rising sophomore finance major; Rebecca Ahlberg (’20) and AJ Powell (’20), both entrepreneurship majors; and Matthew Stuart, rising junior accounting major, won the $1,000 prize with their idea of Juice and Grow, an urban farm and juice shop that would partner with local restaurants to supply locally grown greens from sites and households in the community, providing people with a health source of food and an opportunity to sell their yields back to the company to meet market demands.
Lipscomb’s team out-pitched Belmont, Western Kentucky University, Union University, Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee State University.
“We were focused on benefitting multiple areas of impact, not just a singular one,” said Powell of the team’s Juice and Grow idea. “We wanted to create something to generate profit for a good cause, but also to create jobs and income for at-risk teens and the unemployed. We wanted to help out local restaurants in the Buchanan Arts District and the Greater Nashville area, educate kids in schools, get community members involved and drive tourism to the area. Juice and Grow aimed to be so much more than a smoothie shop and greenhouse.”
Events of this nature hone students’ skills in applying an entrepreneurial mindset to economic and social problems, a skill most employers are looking for, said Jeff Cohu, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, who worked with the students to enter the competition.
Stuart, Ahlberg, and Powell previously competed and made it to the national finals of the GoLiveServe Business as Mission Case Competition in February 2019. Ahlberg and Powell are both members of the inaugural graduating class of Lipscomb’s Business as Mission Fellows.
“We love to use our business education to provide practical solutions and help to those who could benefit from that shared knowledge,” said Powell.
The extemporaneous nature of the competition meant that teams could not prepare firm business proposals before the competition. Instead, they had to “work very quickly and think on their feet,” said Cohu.
“I think having a good team was a great distinguishing factor. We had a team with lots of diversity as far as multiple areas of discipline,” said Powell. “Matt being our accounting man handled almost of all the numbers by himself. Rebecca and I had experience with creating marketing plans, generating partnerships and creating multiple revenue streams from several consultations we’ve done through the Business as Mission program. Aidan was able to bring in a lot of real-world knowledge as well.
“Doing these sorts of competitions has been an excellent display of the skills that I’ve learned at Lipscomb, and I think they’re some of the most practical things that I will carry into my career,” Powell said. “Creativity is a skill that has more recently been in decline that employers are looking to see in new hires, and I think creative problem-solving is a muscle that we definitely get to work with this competition.
“For me personally, building social enterprises and inventing revenue streams is actually what I want to do with my career so doing just that and getting tons of practice in before I graduate is an incredible opportunity,” she said.
This was the first time Belmont Enactus had held the Reverse Pitch Competition.