The Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship is hosting its first annual Business Concept Pitch Competition on Monday, March 9 at 5 pm in Matheson Hall, Room 109. Nine entrepreneurial student teams, representing finalists from the written concept paper competition, will present their business ideas in three-minute pitches to a panel of distinguished judges. Teams represent students from all across the University and three winners will be selected and awarded cash prizes totaling $3,000. A reception will follow the event.

The entire Drexel community is welcome to attend to hear these business ideas. If you have not already done so and plan to attend, please register online at http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/Centers/Baiada/Calendar.php.

Join the Drexel Entrepreneur Association and the CGTSPS  as they host the founders of two Drexel-based startups, PhindMe and DrexelDrinks, on Thursday March 5th from 6-7:30pm in the Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship Wedge Room. 

Discussion will include a number of topics relating to starting a company as a recent grad or student, developing an idea into a reality, funding issues, as well as anything else in their respective entrepreneurial ventures. A question and answer session will follow, so bring your questions!

For more details, visit the facebook event page at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=65540155814&ref=mf or email the DEA at DrexelEntrepreneurs@gmail.com.

The Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship in Technology will host the first annual Business Concept Pitch Competition on Monday, March 2, 2009, at 5 pm in Mitchell Auditorium, Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center (Market Street between 31st and 32nd Streets).

Ten entrepreneurial teams, representing finalists from the written concept paper competition will present their business ideas in three-minute pitches to a panel of distinguished judges. Teams represent students from across the University, and three winners will be selected and awarded cash prizes totaling $3,000.

A reception will follow the event. Register online at http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/Centers/Baiada/Calendar.

     I feel what’s most important in any professional experience is to make an impact and learn something new in the process. PhindMe has given me the opportunity to do both and more. I heard about an opening with this Baiada Center-based startup via the LeBow Newsletter, which hits student inboxes several times a month. Upon researching the role further, I realized I was looking at a cutting edge technology company. With a double concentration in MIS and marketing, this opportunity was right up my alley so I immediately responded to the posting.

     After an interview with Doug Bellenger, the Chief Operating Officer and a graduate of the Drexel MBA program, I learned that PhindMe was a primary provider of mobile customer interaction and information solutions for businesses. With their tools, businesses could go beyond traditional advertising, creating more immediate and loyal connections with customers. The need for such a solution becomes apparentas consumers are increasingly equipped with Internet-ready devices like Blackberries and iPhones. Imagine the ability to reach consumers wherever they are at any time. With PhindMe, it’s possible.

     During the internship my responsibilities have included sales and marketing tasks. In sales, I’ve been working on lead generation and pitches, as well as developing new verticals and helping with market validation. My other focus is marketing, including general strategy, collateral design, including product testing and development. Most recently I entered the customer service area of the business when asked to help one of our new clients, a premier event planning and promotion company in Philadelphia get started with our tools.

     Working for a startup is both rewarding and challenging. The benefits are more than skin deep. My favorite aspects are the limitless responsibility, the chance to be heard and the room for growth. If you value being treated as a key member of the team, not getting lost in a large corporation’s numbers, working for a startup is for you. If you’ve ever felt that you had a good idea but nobody would hear you out, working for a startup is for you. There’s no better environment to work in as a student. My experience over the past several months has helped to reinforce my passion for startups and entrepreneurship. I hope that someday I’ll lead a team as successful as PhindMe’s in developing a product just as promising.

      If you’d like to get in touch, I’m at roman.zubarev@phindme.net. For more information about the company, visit us at www.phindme.net.

   As students, one of the biggest problems is getting drinks cheaply and without having to go to the grocery store. The founders of DrexelDrinks saw this problem, and made a business out of it.

   It all started with a problem, which is Drexel students having limited options when it comes to attaining large quantities of beverages. With the high cost of keeping a car in the city, legs and public transportation are students’ best friends. However, this results in a trip to the super market becoming an all day event.

   And so, DrexelDrinks was born. Their idea was simple: make your favorite drinks easily available to students.  It’s a business “for students, by students”.

   When Aksel, one of the DrexelDrinks founders, was asked if he ever thought he would own his own business, he answered “No, not until recently did those thoughts start coming together…But when I was little, I remember being in Istanbul and selling off toys I didn’t play with anymore.  I would set up a small table next to everyone else at an outdoor market and just wait for people to buy my used toys…I used to get so excited every time someone bought something…So I guess the spirit was buried all those years and just came back out with DrexelDrinks”. Ross Staszak, the other founder of Drexel Drinks, had a different route to DrexelDrinks. Ross also started early in the entrepreneurial world running his own landscaping business from the age of twelve, managing nearly 20 customers. “It has always been a priority for me to make my own way by taking advantage of my environment and the opportunities that I am given. When I was approached by Aksel about DrexelDrinks there was just no way I could say no.”

   The founders handpicked the beverages, which were over 30 of the most popular non-alcoholic beverages, and developed a website that is easily accessible and user friendly. Anyone who lives on or nearby Drexel University’s campus can go on the site and order a box of 20 drinks. The variety of beverages allows the user to mix and match the order with their favorite drinks as opposed to buying a large set of the same beverage.

   The key to their success is more than “the business model”. Having built relationships with distributors and wholesalers, DrexelDrinks is able to offer products at very low prices. For example, a regular can of Coke on the website goes for 50 cents. Better yet, and this will bring back childhood memories for some of you, Little Hugs go for 40 cents each.

     DrexelDrinks is always looking to grow. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, do not hesitate to contact them.

Aksel Güngör is currently a 4^th year Finance student at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. Aksel can be contacted at aksel@drexeldrinks.com

Ross Staszak is currently a 4^th year Electrical Engineering student at Drexel. Ross can be reached at ross@drexeldrinks.com

 

 

YouNoodle.com - Follow entrepreneurial activity in your community

    A few months ago, I sat in a room with a friend, brainstorming some possible ideas that could be developed and possibly made into a venture. At that very meeting, I proposed some sort of online networking or meet-up place, where members could meet up with members of other Entrepreneurial clubs, see what projects/ventures are being worked on, etc. The possibilities and uses of such a website seemed endless, especially if we could open up the web-community to entrepreneurs looking for talented individuals. It was such a great idea, but I had no idea of how to start developing it or where to start at all.

    After being side tracked for a few months by projects, schoolwork and more, I was contacted by a representative of an online entrepreneurial community startup called YouNoodle.com. The concept behind the website, and the  overall premise, as well as what she was interested in me doing, was EXACTLY what I had thought about months earlier. The only difference was it started on the West Coast in San Francisco, California instead of being an idea in Philadelphia on the East Coast.

     After further examination, I found that YouNoodle was a tremendous, and free, tool that I could use to help the DEA develop the entrepreneurial community at Drexel for years to come. Since starting the DEA two years ago, one of the things I always wondered was how I would be able to see the changes in entrepreneurial growth and startups at Drexel after graduating. YouNoodle was the solution.

     In Fall 2008, the Drexel Entrepreneur Association created its profile and went live, as well as inviting its membership to join and introducing a number of tools to its members to utilize to increase their visibility to potential startups and talented individuals.

    While still in beta form, I see the future of YouNoodle being great, for students, startup companies, entrepreneurs and the University as well. Visibility on this site increases the DEA’s and Drexel University’s presence among the top entrepreneurial student groups across the world, including schools such as Stanford, MIT, Cambridge and UC-Berkley.

    If you’re interested in joining YouNoodle and seeing what could be your path to an entrepreneurial future, I invite you to visit www.YouNoodle.com for more information.