A Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Management (Graziadio School) MBA alumnus recently won the “Best Product of the Year” award for a project that he developed while pursuing his degree.
Paul Martello, who graduated from Graziadio in 2013, brought the ‘Yummy Spoon’ into fruition while a student in the Entrepreneurship program. He received the award at the ECRM Baby & Infant trade show, the largest of its kind in the country.The thoughtful and innovative product provides a vessel for users to put food into, then puree it for healthy, fresh, easy, baby feeding.
Martello made it to the final round of Graziadio’s 2012 Business Plan competition with an early version of the product. He received valuable input from venture capital funders and other startup leaders, who helped him hone the idea into its final form. Martello recalls, “On my first day of the MBA program, Professor Wayne Strom asked us to look around the room and tell the class what we noticed about our fellow students. I said, ‘None of us are entrepreneurs.’ Little did I know that one and half years later Professor Larry Cox would turn me into an award-winning entrepreneur, and the idea conceived in his class would make it to mass retail. Yummy Spoon is my sole source of income now, it is my only job.”
Social impact is another value he gained while at Graziadio; Martello will donate a portion of the product’s proceeds to programs that help to feed children who are in need.