Judges for the 2014 Pepperdine University Business Plan Competition fast pitch elimination round chose six student entrepreneur proposals from the Graziadio School of Business and Management to advance to the finals on Saturday, March 22.
The judges included ICANN executive Dennis Chang (EMBA ’94), a Graziadio Board of Visitors (BOV) member; serial entrepreneur George Georgallides (MBA ’11), a partner at product development agency Curious Ventures and BOV member Bob Mosbaugh (PKE MBA ’05), executive vice president at Honeywell Safes & Door Locks / LHLP.This group of established businessmen heard out 18 different 90-second pitches from and array of business students and one School of Law student. Nearly all of the startups pitched are actively being pursued at the moment. The six pitches moving onto to the final round are:
- A mobile platform that connect customers to local businesses, providing real-time 2-way text-based communication to negotiate orders and deals (Peter Hwang, Peter C. Jang)
- A web-based portfolio platform to help high school athletes connect with university and professional sports recruiters (Annie Macomber)
- A startup that markets an original adjustable wedge for installing doors and windows (Arianne Hefling)
- An online delivery service connecting California’s emerging home-cook community to hungry customers (Marco Garcia)
- A video game development startup for online games that dynamically scale to the player’s individual skill level instead of pitting players (who may vary in skill level) against one another (Laura Colvin)
- A startup marketing stackable, collapsible and environmentally-friendly shoeboxes for your closet (Ara Krikorian)
Many students competing in the competition learned under Dr. Larry Cox, director of Graziadio’s Entrepreneurship Program. This program has has helped start up more than 90 new businesses over the last five years.
Final presentations will be held at the West Los Angeles Campus in Room 333, Saturday, March 22, beginning at 9am. The winner will will take home $10,000 and earn a chance to represent Pepperdine at the California Dreamin’ Competition for a shot at $230,000 in prize money and equity investment.
