Iowa State students participated in the first annual Pitch Off Competition for the Entrepreneur Club at the Student Innovation Center on Saturday.
The event gave students interested in entrepreneurship the opportunity to win prizes, network with professionals, workshop their business ideas and enjoy live music from the Wanderlust band.
Zackry Brannen, a junior in marketing, said the idea for the Pitch Off Competition originated from events the Entrepreneur Club takes part in.
“We got inspired by events we go to as a club,” Brannen said. “We were like, ‘Let’s do a band,’ we have pitches and workshops, where we are helping people find customers and how to market.”
Brannen said the purpose of the Pitch Off Competition is to help attract new students to the club.
“It’s a good way to connect with the community,” Brannen said. “The band is nice because people will come and listen to it and be like, ‘Oh, what is this for,’ and then there are prospective people who may be interested in the Entrepreneur Club and they’ll become interested.”
Aaron McKee, a senior in aerospace engineering, said students using the opportunity to network and pitch are the two most important parts of the event.
“You’re always trying to find people to network with and meet with because you never know what skills people may have,” McKee said. “The other side of that is being able to market and pitch your business ideas, so people can see what you do.”
The student workshop pitches covered a wide range of business ventures, according to Jonathan Duron, a senior in software engineering.
“You have pitches from people that are doing applications to pitches that are making shampoo, so there’s just a wide variety of them,” Duron said. “One that stood out to me was instead of waking up to an alarm, a machine gently wakes you up by vibrating the bed.”
Ben Adams, a junior in aerospace engineering, hopes the inaugural Pitch Off Competition will help future contests grow into a larger event.
“This is our first time hosting this,” Adams said. “We hope to grow it into a bigger event all over the country because there’s collegiate pitch competitions, but there’s kind of a lack of those in the Midwest area, so we have a vision for where we want to fill that need and we think we can do it here.”
McKee said one of the ways the club hopes to grow the Pitch Off Competition is by providing more networking opportunities.
“I think it would be very beneficial if we were to, at least next year, get some companies in and give them booths,” McKee said. “We want companies who are wanting to hire people with an entrepreneurial mindset and other innovators to come here and look for potential people who are interested in that.”
Adams said he endured many obstacles when preparing for the Pitch Off Competition, but expressed it as being similar to entrepreneurship in general.
“A lot of times it can be hard to kind of follow your vision, especially when you keep getting hit by obstacles,” Adams said. “The Entrepreneur Club is a place where people have worked through obstacles and who can relate to you, so this is a good place to learn from people and get poured into the community.”
Brannen said he encourages anybody with businesses or ideas to join the Entrepreneur Club.
“If you want to meet with like-minded individuals, show up to the Entrepreneur Club every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Room 118 at the Student Innovation Center,” Brannen said.
Participants in the Pitch Off Competition were awarded first, second and third place finishes while receiving $500, $300 and $200 based on their placement.
Alexander Vickery, a sophomore in aerospace engineering, won third place. Sara Albarracin, a junior in management information systems, won second place. Madison Green, a junior in supply chain management, won first place.
