- [Voice Over] Live from the Elaine Langone Center on the campus of Bucknell University, WVIA Presents Keystone Edition Business, a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone Edition Business.

And now moderator, Steve Stumbris.

- Welcome to Keystone Edition Making the Pitch.

Tonight, WVIA presents a one hour special, the Biz Pitch Business Pitch Competition from the campus of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

I'm Steve Stumbris and viewers tonight might know me as the moderator of WVIA's Keystone Edition Business, but I'm also the director of the Small Business Development Center here at Bucknell University.

You're about to meet the young entrepreneurs who have made the finals of Bucknell's Biz Pitch competition.

The four finalists tonight have been selected from 30 applicants to pitch their innovative startup ideas.

They represent Bucknell's signature interdisciplinary approach to entrepreneurship and draw from diverse curricular and extracurricular pursuits to impact the world in powerful ways.

Let's meet our finalists.

- Hi, my name is Kim Magnotta.

- My name is Simbe Somaposa.

- We are developing the app Uncharted.

- And we are Geo Ref.

- Allergy Aid is an app to help people with dietary restrictions navigate the complicated world of dining outside of their homes.

- Prime-Air is a portable, nonelectric, cost effective nebulizer for effective treatment of asthma in underserved communities.

- Uncharted is a social music discovery app, empowering small artists to grow their fan base.

- GeoRef is an integrated platform for sports league managers, coaches, and referees.

- With me here at Bucknell is an audience of community members here to support these student entrepreneurs as well as students here to cheer for their friends.

(audience applauds) We're also joined by three Bucknell alumni judges.

Our finalists will have three minutes to pitch to them, and then our judges will have four minutes to ask questions and offer advice.

Our first judge, Anthony Lewis, is a vice president at Morgan Stanley in New York City and the founder of Manhattan Exercise Company.

He received an economics degree from Bucknell and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.

Our next judge, Pamela Gilmore, founder of Financial Fitness.

She's volunteered with the Maryland Alzheimer's Association and the National Board for Women in Insurance and Financial Services.

She holds a degree in accounting from Bucknell.

Finally, Mike Molinet joins us.

He's the co-founder of Branch, the mobile linking and measuring platform that powers apps like Spotify, Adobe, Uber, and thousands more.

He has a mechanical engineering degree from Bucknell and an MBA from Stanford.

Thank you all for joining us.

In just a moment, we're going to learn more about each presenter and their ideas, but later on in the show, we're going to need help from our audience, both our viewers and our audience here in person.

After the last presentation, the judges will tally their scores, but here's where you come in.

You will have a chance to vote for your fan favorite.

Cast your vote by going to Keystone Edition Business page on WVIA, Bucknell Biz Pitch on Instagram or Facebook or by scanning the code.

Going to that link on your screen and for our audience here tonight, scan that code on your program.

Now let's welcome the first Biz Pitch team, Anna Ottman, Hunter Gaiman, Yali Amsealy, and Will Crosswhite.

These four first year students met in their Engineering 100 class and soon decided to enter Biz Pitch Together.

Let's find out what led them to create GeoRef.

- Hi, I'm Will.

- I'm Anna.

- I'm Hunter.

- I'm Yali, and we are GeoRef.

- GeoRef is an integrated platform for sports league managers, coaches, and referees.

- In high school, I worked as a referee.

I was assigned my games through random emails that were impossible to keep track of.

This led to me being late or even missing games altogether with no way to contact the coaches.

- Imagine driving the whole family to a game only to realize that it's been canceled or delayed because the referee hasn't shown up.

GeoRef seeks to reduce that by providing communication to these parents.

- Using my background in computer science, we've been able to develop a geolocation based algorithm and also integrate a communication system into our app.

- By winning Biz Pitch, we'll reinvest the money into our servers and APIs so that we could reach a broader audience.

- Thank you so much and we're excited to bring you GeoRef, the one-stop solution for Sports League Management.

- As you saw in our introduction, I experienced scheduling issues firsthand as a referee.

I thought that our league was one of the only ones with such poor planning and communication, but it turns out we weren't alone.

We spoke to over 50 different leagues and found that the second highest cause for game cancellation was actually due to scheduling issues.

With over 30 million children and teens in the US alone participating in youth sports leagues, one can only imagine the impact this has on families causing parents both time and money.

Up until a few years ago, leagues only had the options of Excel spreadsheets or paper copies to organize their data.

As leagues shift to the digital age, the market size for sports league management software is expected to double to over $200 million in the next five years.

- This puts GeoRef in the perfect market position to seize upon this growth.

Our largest direct competitor, Arbiter Sports still suffers from the follies of traditional league management.

Their model focuses on the league as a whole, completely neglecting individual coaches, referees, and it's currently 68% of referees say they're dissatisfied with their current league scheduling.

- Now, when we examined the shortcomings of these previous solutions, we found a few ways for GeoRef to completely book this expanding Sports League market space.

First, GeoRef will be the first in its market to offer an integrated communication platform so that coaches, referees, and league managers can share information as easily as possible.

This will allow cancellations to be filled quicker and for coaches to receive any necessary information about various delays.

Secondly, GeoRef will implement a location-based algorithm.

This will allow referees to travel the minimum time and distance to get to their games each week, making it as easy as possible for them to get there.

Finally, GeoRef will personalize on a referee by referee basis to make it as easy as possible for refs to find recently canceled games near them to fill.

- During the beta launch, we will gather user feedback and test the product.

This feedback will allow us to refine GeoRef and make any necessary changes before rolling out the product to the market.

We will implement a dynamic pricing model based on the number of referees per sports league with a fee, a flat fee.

Furthermore, with the help of Biz Pitch funding, we'll launch the product within the coming months and have a full rollout within a year.

As we gain traction and grow our startup, we will adjust the pricing model to accommodate increased demand while remaining profitable and competitive.

- Well, Excel spreadsheets are all good and fine, but leagues deserve 21st century solutions.

At GeoRef, we seek to bring that 21st century technology to an outdated system that is untapped for growth.

We seek to be the definitive all in one solution for sports league management and we want you to be a part of it.

Thank you.

(audience applauds) - You now have four minutes for our judges to offer their advice or ask questions.

So judges, for GeoRef?

- I think it's an awesome idea.

I was confused when I saw just the little clip initially, but you've done a great job in explaining it.

My question pertains to how are you going to get the word out about the product?

- So since we will be doing larger league subscriptions for fairly large leads, starting locally, we want to start with local leagues.

Really just getting to know them to improve our product and from there we will be expanding, but we plan on marketing directly to leagues and making larger deals based on subscriptions.

We hope word of mouth along with sponsorships of, you know, sports games and leagues will help drive our product and sales.

- Awesome.

- Nice development so far, I like the focus on the niche of sports league management.

Have you explored if this works and the technology works expanding to other opportunities?

For example, maybe restaurants or other small businesses might benefit from some of the things you're talking about, which seem to be like a much bigger overall market size than the 200 million that you're looking at with Sports League management.

What are your thoughts there?

- So yes, there's definitely a market.

We were thinking maybe going to different occupations, not necessarily referees, but occupations that that need to go from location to location in certain like organizations.

So for instance, like security guards, it's the same role throughout, so they could work in certain like malls or venues around that area.

So that would definitely help.

Or lifeguards, I was a lifeguard and I had to like go to different venues in South Jersey to lifeguard, right?

And it's the same job throughout.

If we could implement that feature within another app or an extension of GeoRef, that would be great and would definitely help our profitability.

- Really any at home service.

- True.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- That's actually part of it too.

We wanna make it scalable.

The technology that Hunter is working on is trying to bring it, not just Sports League as well, but we do wanna focus on sports leagues.

- So Manhattan Exercise Company could use that because we work with a bunch of independent contractor trainers who are supposed to be at different locations at different times of the week and and day.

And the most challenging thing that we run into is when a instructor says, "Hey, I can't make it to today's class," and it's, you know, 25 minutes until the class, right?

So as I listen to you, I think one interesting opportunity would be sub management.

So when people, you know, when a referee is going to not be able to go to the game, being able to seamlessly find subs like, I'd pay for that, right?

Because it's a headache and then you risk a lot of revenue when you have enough of those situations happening.

And then just kind of the onboarding process.

If I'm you guys, I'm in a position to say to a company who leverages independent or disparate contractor is to say, let us organize everything for you.

Let us onboard them for you, they're your people, but let us handle the kind of organization of it all.

So I think those are two kind of lateral ideas that might be useful to consider.

And just one quick question about Arbiter Sports.

What do they do?

What do they, if you can really quick explain.

- Yeah, so Arbiter Sports is very similar, well I wouldn't actually say it's similar, it's somewhat similar in that they do league management, they're in charge of scheduling the leagues.

They offer somewhat of an integrated platform that has to do with finding, working with the scheduler to block times for the different schedules and paying those refs.

But where it breaks down is there is no communication.

Essentially, if a ref can't call in, he has to then call the scheduler who then has to adjust it on the scheduling platform on Arbiter Sports, who then the scheduler then has to call and be like, "I adjusted it, you're good."

And there's a lot of middlemen, there's a lot of movement in place and it leads to difficulty coordinating the league.

In fact, Yali and I, we were cold calling a bunch of leagues off of the spreadsheet and one of the leagues we contacted said that they would miss some of these emails from these referees or miss some of the calls and it would, and they would have to end up delaying or canceling games.

- [Steve] Thank you Anthony, Pam, and Mike for your questions.

And one more time, thank you to GeoRef.

(audience applauds) The nine young entrepreneurs in Bucknell's Biz Pitch finals span across several class years from the first year students we just met, several seniors and also a sophomore from the College of Arts and Sciences.

These competitors are also pursuing a wide variety of majors.

Many have taken entrepreneurship and business courses in the Freeman College of Management or Design and Innovation classes in the College of Engineering.

And in the case of Will from GeoRef, who we just met as a dual major in engineering and management, both.

Next in Biz Pitch is a biomedical engineering senior who's originally from Zimbabwe, meet Simbe Somaposa.

In addition, yes.

(audience cheer) In addition to being an aspiring entrepreneur, Simbe holds a position at Bucknell Small Business Development Center as a project manager and engineering consultant helping businesses design new products.

Here's more about Prime Air Solutions.

- Hi, my name is Simbe Somaposa.

I'm a biomedical engineering major and I'm originally from Guru, Zimbabwe.

Prime Air is a portable, nonelectric, cost-effective nebulizer for effective treatment of asthma in underserved communities.

I grew up watching my grandmother struggle with asthma and I remember when I was about 13 years old, she had a severe asthma attack that almost took her life.

About two years ago, I decided to start developing a medical device that would be specifically tailored for the treatment of asthma in lower resource areas.

So as to help people like my grandmother.

Prime-Air was designed to be very easy to use and very affordable for the target population.

This nebulizer can make all the difference between fear and peace of mind by effectively delivering asthma medication into the lungs for optimal treatment.

Prime-Air, providing life for patients with asthma.

Good evening, by show of hands, how many people in the room have asthma or know somebody with asthma?

Take a second to look around.

Almost everybody has their hand up.

As you seen in the video, I grew up watching my grandmother struggle with asthma and her experience was not unique.

Like thousands of other people in lower resource communities, she did not have access to effective asthma treatment.

And her experience highlighted to me the challenges that patients in underserved and lower resource areas face when it comes to accessing high quality lifesaving medical devices.

Asthma is a global health challenge.

In Zimbabwe alone, it is one of the top 10 outpatient conditions affecting over 20% of the population.

As a result, almost 5,000 people die every single year.

So I developed Prime-Air.

Prime-Air is a nebulizer, which is a device that converts liquid asthma medication into aerosols that can be inhaled into the lungs for optimal treatment.

The product comes in three components, the mouthpiece, the chamber, and the bulb.

To use the device, the patient will simply put their medication into the chamber, put the mask over the nose and mouth and simply squeeze the bulb.

It's so easy, right?

And unlike current existing products that are bulky, expensive, and require electricity, which to be honest, is a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford, Prime-Air is portable, cost effective, and does not require electricity.

Our value proposition is that we provide accessibility and convenience for patients who need effective asthma treatment anywhere at any time.

And the market for this product is huge.

In Zimbabwe alone, 1.3 million people have asthma.

62.9% of those people are considered lower resource areas, bringing us to over 800,000 required units.

At $13 each for a unit, less than the price of your Barnell meal.

Our total market size is over 10 million and we're only looking at Zimbabwe, one tiny country in southern Africa.

But our market goes beyond Zimbabwe.

We're looking at areas in Asia, Europe, as well as America.

And our business model is very easy.

Prime-Air will handle the manufacturing, packaging, and the assembly of our product.

We'll partner with trusted NGOs who have done work of improving accessibility to medical devices before and this NGOs will buy the product in bulk, handle public relations, also handle the distribution, as well as educating our users on how to use the device.

It's a model that is built to generate revenue as well as make real impact.

So what's next from Prime-Air?

We are looking forward to develop the final product, initiate regulatory processes, as well as start marketing the product.

What I'm asking you judges tonight is to invest in a product that is going to change the healthcare narrative for patients in underserved and low resource areas who really need effective asthma treatment.

Thank you.

(audience applauds) (indistinct) - Okay, thank you.

- [Steve] So judges, again, questions and I see that you have some of Simbe's prototypes in hand.

What questions do you have for her, Anthony?

- So I have a five year old and eight year old.

Both of 'em have asthma and there have been way too many 2:00 AM trips to the hospital.

- Yeah.

- It's tricky.

You know, as a parent you don't know when to go, you know, so I say that to say I understand that the target market is underserved areas, but because of how the inhaler works and how it may not always be well received by children, this could also be a children's, you know, product, right?

Like.

- Exactly.

And the thing is, with this product, like I said, it's very portable and you don't require to even go to the hospital.

What motivated me to develop this product was that my grandmother had to travel over two hours to get the nearest hospital.

In that timeline, you could potentially die.

So this is a product that is right there, next to your bed.

In your bag, in your pocket, very accessible and you can use it any time.

- Yeah, I would just say this, I think it's a brilliant idea.

I think every product can be an experience and for this product to be able to mitigate the anxiety that my wife and I have when we're dealing with our, you know, children's asthma on a late night.

I think that's valuable in and of itself.

And if the application is developed in a way, I think it could be a really incredible idea.

So.

- Thank you.

- I like your passion and I think the tie in to your grandmother is incredible.

It's a great story.

Couple of financial questions.

The first is, what is the cost to make the unit?

- The estimated cost of making the unit, right now we're estimating $7.

- Okay, and are you planning to trademark this, the competition?

It's the competition.

Like there's nothing, I mean you showed pictures of these very expensive machines.

- Exactly.

So current, our competition is very low.

Looking at the size of the product that we're in and also the cost of the product that will be in as well like $13, that's a very low price.

Existing products are starting at 60, 80, going up to over $300.

So all competition in terms of price and portability is very low.

- Where will the people in these countries purchase them?

- So we can, we have the capability to be able to deliver the product directly to the patient.

But another huge part of this business is being able to educate patients on how to effectively manage the disease, which is why we're choosing to partner with NGOs who handle the distribution of the product to our customers.

- [Pamela] Excellent.

Excellent.

Very good.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Really phenomenal.

I love the approach that you're taking.

A couple questions on my end on the asthma rates.

Do you have any data or have you looked at any data to see whether that's increasing at a high rate year over year?

- Yeah, it definitely is.

One of the things is COVID, it has increased a lot with COVID but also with how the economy is growing.

So a lot of these developing countries, they are developing countries because industrialization is happening at a very fast rate, leading to more exposure to pollutants and also asthma allergens.

So with that, all those things going on, the rate of people getting asthma is definitely increasing.

- I think that's the interesting thing 'cause having traveled to places like India, Indonesia, I mean, you're looking at billions of people probably in underserved markets without access to this information in environments where the air quality is not very good.

So I'd imagine that there's a big opportunity in those types of markets.

What about the US?

How do you think about the US and does this require a prescription in places like US?

And what about in other countries?

- So the US there's definitely more competition in the sense that there are currently more devices that are easily accessible in the US.

You can go on Amazon and find a device, but still those are very expensive.

So although the competition is a little bit higher in the US, there is definitely still underserved communities within the US where people are not able to afford existing devices.

And in the US as well, there's a lot of people with asthma within the country who are currently underserved and those will be our target customers as well.

- [Mike] Cool.

Does this require a prescription in the US and other countries?

- The device does not require a prescription.

You only need a prescription for the medication, which is somewhere... - I think it's a huge opportunity globally for sure.

- Well, one more time.

Thank you very much of Simbe.

(audience applauds and cheers) Our judges are evaluating these student pitches in five categories.

First, the problem they're solving, second, the market for that solution, third, how innovative they are, then how feasible their venture could be.

And finally, the pitch presentation itself.

If you are viewing tonight and have comments about any of their pitches, you can email us at keystone@wvia.org.

Tag us on social with the hashtags Keystone Business and Bucknell Biz Pitch.

Now our third finalist, brothers Will Cartierie and Ben Cartierie and co-founder Stevie Rauch.

This team of three engineering seniors combines their skills as designers, coders, and social media marketing experts with a shared interest in music.

Let's hear how they plan to bring undiscovered artists and listeners together with Uncharted.

- We are developing the app Uncharted.

Hi, I'm Will.

I'm the CEO of Uncharted and I've been working on software development of the app for the past year now.

- I'm Stevie and my specialty is social media and marketing.

- I'm Ben and I bring sales and design experience to the team.

- Uncharted is a social music discovery app, empowering small artists to grow their fan base.

- The app is as easy as uploading a 30 second clip, which will be shared with users based on their listening preferences.

With the current streaming service model, the vast majority of artists are relatively unheard.

Uncharted will give small artists the tools to connect with their fans and grow their fan base.

We envision that artists can add graphics to set the vibe, acoustic covers to their song, or their inspiration for why they wrote it.

Winning Biz Pitch would allow us to expand our development team, start a marketing campaign, and get the app out by the end of the summer.

- Thank you for your consideration.

We're really excited to share with you Uncharted.

Hi everyone.

Thank you for being here and thank you judges for your consideration.

To start off, I wanna show you something crazy.

This blue line shows the distribution of monthly listeners for all artists on Spotify.

Looks a little weird, right?

We agree that's because the top 0.7% of artists on Spotify control 90% of all streams.

That means of the 8 million artists on the platform, more than 7.9 million are relatively unheard.

As one artist we talked to put it nicely, there's no middle class in the music industry.

That's where Uncharted comes in.

Our goal is connect listeners to 7.9 million unheard artists around the world.

Uncharted is a social music discovery app that uses a smart algorithm and constantly update feed to show you music we think you'll love.

We like to think of it like TikTok, but for music.

Uncharted is linked with all major streaming services.

So as soon as you discover a song you like, you can add it to your current playlist.

With that, I'm gonna hand it off to our lead designer, Ben, who's gonna jump into the Uncharted experience.

- Welcome to the Discover page where the Uncharted algorithm will show you previews of songs we think you'll love.

Swipe through to quickly expose yourself to a wide range of new music.

As a user, I can interact with the post by liking or reposting, or I can simply add the song directly to my streaming service playlist.

Uncharted also allows artists the opportunity to add content to their songs such as graphics, acoustic covers or clips of them explaining their music.

Meet Academy, an artist we spoke with from LA who's trying to gain more exposure for their music and breakout in the industry, they're tired of having their music buried under sea of content on other social media platforms and wished there was social media platform that was dedicated to music.

In addition to a Discover page, we have a live events tab to explore new artists as they perform live.

We like to think of this like a virtual street performance.

We also have a search tab, user profiles, and communications to help you curate new playlists and explore music with your friends.

I wish I could share more about what our app has to offer, but I'm gonna hand it off to Stevie to talk about what I'm sure you're all wondering, how we're gonna make money.

- In 2020, record labels spent almost $6 billion on artists' promotions.

We're gonna tap into this market through an advertising business model where artists can pay to get their songs promoted directly to targeted users.

Now you're probably wondering if we're the only music discovery app out there.

Of course not.

While some apps allow listeners to discover new music and others allow artists to create content, Uncharted will be the first to bring together artists and music explorers on one social media platform.

Now as three engineers, we're confident we can get this app off the ground with Will having plenty of software development experience, having recently developed satellite flight software for the US Air Force and myself having amassed over 200,000 followers on social media and creating my own cryptocurrency.

And Ben has the technical product and software sales experience with a massive graphic design portfolio.

Now we're looking to get the app out by early August, and to do so will need your investment to expand our development team, secure all the necessary domains and protections, and start a marketing campaign.

With a hundred thousand songs released on Spotify every day, this is a massive market that is only growing with low startup costs, huge growth potential, and multiple directions to expand.

Uncharted can be the change this industry desperately needs.

So with that, come join Uncharted and discover a world of new music.

(audience applauds) - Uncharted, our judges are ready for you and I know that Mike has some great notes for you.

- So love the Venn diagram.

Love with the combo of discovery plus the artist engagement.

I think the market opportunities is large, so you're going after something big.

The biggest question is how do you think you'll get the users, getting them end consumers onto a new platform?

There needs to be some sort of virality viral hook.

How do you, how do you envision that?

- Yeah, so for artists, we're planning on doing something called, we've known as brandbassading, brand ambassadors.

So basically we're gonna reach out to artists and offer them a promotion where if you get X amount of artists to sign up, then you'll get X amount of free views or listens on the platform, that will entice them to tell all their friends about it.

That obviously as a small artist, you're friends with small artists, so that'll get them to reach the word out that way.

We're also gonna use other social media platforms that already exist to help go viral and show what this is all about.

And so there's a proven market for listeners who want to discover new music.

We've seen that with the competition and now with the artists, we're gonna basically, you know, give them the keys to, if you wanna spread the word and tell your friends about it, you can get the listens.

- Cool.

- I'm very curious as to how this started.

Are any of you musicians?

- No, none of us are musicians, but we all have friends and family who are musicians.

We've watched them struggle to get their music heard.

We know they're all super talented, but they just can't get any traction.

So we were actually really inspired by TikTok.

We like the idea of how anyone can post a video and just have a blow up.

We thought why not bring that to the music industry?

It's the perfect place for it.

And so that's sort of how this all started.

- Awesome.

And what year are you?

- [Will] We're all seniors.

- [Pamela] Seniors, awesome.

So you're going to launch with this?

- Yeah, that's the goal.

- [Pamela] Very nice.

- So this is dope, man.

Like this really, it's really cool.

It seems like a really cool opportunity.

It seems also like a really saturated space, right?

Like, and I know you drew the Venn diagram and it kind of separates things, but you know, can you really, do you really think that people would see this to be that much different than TikTok or something similar?

And lastly, what's the end game, right?

Would you want to be acquired by TikTok with like, what's the, how do you guys think about that?

- Yeah, I can answer that one.

So as far as like how we differentiate from competitors, I mean we've seen there's music discovery apps out there and we know there's social media platforms, but we haven't really seen a great combination of the two.

And we agree, it's kind of similar to TikTok in the sense of like the swiping through short form content, but we're isolating the music from the sea of content that's on TikTok.

It's impossible.

If you want to go on TikTok for music discovery, it's impossible right now.

I'd have to scroll through all the other content that I'm seeing on there.

And it's really hard for artists to grow their fan base on there because they kind of have to post gimmicky content if they want to stand out against all that other content.

So they're not really focusing on like what they love, what's making music and posting that music.

Whereas this platform will allow them to do that and not have to try and go viral.

They can just post their music and let the listeners decide if it's good.

And then as far as their endgame, this is our endgame.

Spotify has in the last three years has spent 1.2 billion in acquisitions and we're kind of trying to get into this market, not necessarily Spotify, but like tech startups, I mean, can grow quickly and can get acquired quickly.

And that's kind of our exit strategy.

- Really quick, have you guys heard of United Masters?

- I have not.

- No.

- Okay, not enough time to talk about that.

Would like to talk to you guys about that.

- One final note, Mike, on this end game, how- - I freaking love it.

If you, I mean if you look at a lot of other social media companies, they're looking at, okay, how do we compete with TikTok, right?

That's their ultimate competition.

If you're not on TikTok and you get them on their own, Instagram having stories, YouTube doing shorts, Spotify's gonna have to do the same thing.

And what better way than to, you know, work with you guys to help also give exposure to other artists that are on their platforms.

So love it.

And that's gonna grow by quite a bit over the next few years.

So three years from now, when you're ready to get acquired by Spotify, this will be probably like 3 billion, 4 billion.

- All right, one more time for Uncharted.

(audience applauds) After the next pitch, our judges will tally their scores and will present a first place prize of $5,000 to one of these hardworking and deserving Biz Pitch finalists.

Additionally, our judges will select the winner of the Changemaker Prize, which will be awarded to the pitch with the potential for significant positive impact in the world.

Now our final pitch of the night, presented by sophomore political science major Kim Magnotta.

Living with food allergies can be difficult.

Going out to a restaurant might range from frustrating to life threatening.

Kim aims to put safety and security on the menu with Allergy Aid.

- Hi, my name is Kim Magnotta.

I'm a political science major and I have 13 allergies.

Allergy Aid is an app I have developed to help people with dietary restrictions navigate the complicated world of dining outside of their homes.

This app encourages restaurant owners to upload their allergy protocols into our app so that any user of Allergy Aid can see easily if a restaurant can accommodate their every need.

I wanna be a resource for the 25 million people who also have similar dietary restrictions.

Winning Biz Pitch would allow me the opportunity to move my app from the R&D stage into the production stage.

I'm so honored to be a part of Biz Pitch and take Allergy Aid to the next step where I can help users take the fear out of food.

Picture this, you're out with your friends, you go to a restaurant, you find something appetizing on the menu, tell the waiter you have food allergies and are told, "No."

No?

What do you mean no?

Well, to the 26 million Americans who suffer from food allergies, being told no is an all too common occurrence.

In fact, by the time this brief presentation ends, two people will have gone to the emergency room as a result of anaphylactic shock.

Hence why I carry this life saving device everywhere that I may travel.

So after countless no's, I have finally developed a yes, introducing Allergy Aid.

A user-friendly app that uses location-based data to give people information about the restaurants near them and those that can accommodate their every need and those that perhaps cannot.

If a restaurant is allergen friendly, they're pinned as green on our map.

If they perhaps can accommodate your needs, they're pinned as orange and if cross-contamination risks are too great, they're pinned as red and we suggest that you do not dine at this facility.

In addition to this, we also have a user review section.

Users just like Yelp may write in on their dining experiences and share whether or not an restaurant was able to accommodate allergies in your personal needs.

This makes it much easier for the user to make decisions about dining out so that they can feel safe and comfortable prior to arriving on site.

Now it is important to note that there are two other companies that are doing something similar.

However, Allergy Aid is able to differentiate itself in a variety of ways.

First off, we verify our information on the app to ensure that what users see is in fact accurate.

We do this through a scaled system.

Restaurants may pay $60 to become allergy approved.

This makes sure that we can look at their information and ensure they are following a certain degree of allergen safety.

For an additional $60, restaurants can have preferred placement on the app, meaning that their restaurant is the first restaurant that pops up as opposed to a potential competitor.

In addition, we want to accommodate vegans and vegetarians because we realize that they too have dietary restrictions and want to know what they're getting into prior to getting to a restaurant.

We also have an incentive structure for users.

So those who frequently write reviews on the apps will actually receive coupons from those restaurants that are paying for the premium payment structure.

Now, whether or not you personally know someone with a food allergy, I can attest to the fact that it's very difficult going out and feeling safe while dining.

I wanna take that fear out of food for millions of Americans.

And after speaking with restaurant goers and peers alike who also suffer from allergies, I can say with great certainty that there is a place in the market for this app.

So please help me take the fear out of food with Allergy Aid.

Thank you very much.

(audience applauds) - Our judges, questions for our final competitor of the night?

- [Anthony] Yeah, I think it's really cool.

I think it's really thoughtful.

I think about some people I know that have allergies.

What my consideration is kind of focused on is how do you get, how do you become a cog in the machine of the dining industry, right?

So I think about when people look at Seamless and like a four star rating or people look at different apps to kind of get a review, to kind of get a sense of whether they want, and I also think about going to a place and not necessarily changing my mind about the place if they're not allergy kind of sensitive.

So have you considered kind of using this approach to create a standard for allergy sensitivity with within other apps?

Right, so I'll stop there.

- Yeah, no, for sure.

I will say that people with allergies are very loyal because once you know something is allergy safe, you're more prone to go back and keep using it rather than to try a different place because you feel safe there and they know that you can be accommodated.

So for this reason, tapping into people with allergies is a great market opportunity for restaurateurs.

And with that being said, even allergist and allergy organizations have a great platform to recommend restaurants.

So I want to tap into that while playing in on Allergy Aid.

- Gotcha.

- Kim, how do you reach the consumer?

- So when I go every year for my annual allergy checkup, my allergist always shares with me new products on the market.

Word of mouth is very important in this industry and getting this into the mouths of doctors is even more crucial.

In addition, I have a lot of friends who suffer from food allergies and we're always texting each other when new things come out on the market to help our audience.

So for that reason, word of mouth, yes.

- And I can see even an expanded market for this in that I don't have any allergies, but I'm very picky with what's in the food.

So I will sometimes tell the waiter or waitress that I have this allergy to make sure that that's not gonna be in my food, so I think it's a great concept.

- Thank you.

- I agree, as somebody that has a nut allergy and so has to be very careful about what I eat, but also has other kind of dietary restrictions.

It's been very hard to find, for example, keto or gluten-free restaurants.

So I definitely agree with the expansion.

When you think about monetizing, so you mentioned kind of being charged by the restaurant basis.

Another approach could be ads if you can get to scale.

'Cause I'd imagine if I'm looking for a certain type of restaurant, another restaurant might want to grab me.

Have you thought about other monetization mechanisms beyond just charging maybe the restaurant for a verification fee, for example?

- Yes.

So for me, I feel that in general, people with allergies have a lot of additional charges just for living life.

I mean, the fact that I'm carrying this lifesaving device, it costs hundreds of dollars if you don't have good health insurance.

And in addition, even something as simple as a box of cookies costs more if it says nut free on it than if it doesn't.

So for that reason, I don't wanna charge the user.

However, I would definitely consider having ads on the platform and getting more revenue that way.

- [Mike] Cool.

Love it.

- [Steve] One final piece of advice for Kim as she grows Allergy Aid.

- I'll share one and then feel free to chime in.

I, the challenge here is gonna be a double-sided marketplace where you need to get consumers and you need to get restaurants on.

I think the more you can think about how do you scale the end users, so definitely the doctors, but how many, you know, depends on how often people are going to the doctor on a regular basis if they have allergies.

I haven't been to the doctor for my allergy in probably 20 years, but if you can think about other ways to scale, kind of user virality, sharing these types of things, that might be another way to get a additional people onto the platform.

- Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much.

- [Steve] All right, one more time.

Thank you to Kim.

(audience applauds) Thank you, Kim.

And thank you to every one of our student presenters tonight.

Our judges are now going to confer and we will soon return to present the Changemaker and first place prizes.

But before those two awards, I'd like to invite our viewing audience and those here in person at Bucknell to cast your vote online for the fan favorite prize.

Follow the link in the program here tonight on Bucknell Biz Pitch Social Media and on screen now to vote for fan favorite.

As you cast your votes, we're gonna learn more about our judges.

I had a chance to talk with them earlier today to find out about what they're looking forward to in Biz Pitch and the advice that they wish they had had when they were students here about business and entrepreneurship.

I'd like to hear from each of you, what do you wish you had known about business and entrepreneurship when you were a student here at Bucknell?

So Pam, some things that you wish you had known.

- Well, as I was saying, a few minutes ago, back in the '70s, there was not even an entrepreneurship program.

So I kind of fell into being an entrepreneur, having worked at a firm where I thought, I gotta get outta here and I could do it better.

So I started my own firm.

But advice would be, perseverance is key.

Every no is just getting you closer to a yes.

And then since I'm at the tail end, I'm actually selling my business now.

I would say that I've read this before, so I think it's a little extreme, but the day you start your business, you should be thinking about exiting the business.

So along the way I usually recommend people be looking for your partner, be looking for your successor.

- Yeah, I think it's important to, as you go into not only building a business, but when you think about the transition from college to the real world, you're thinking about who am I, right?

And I think all too often as entrepreneurs, we kind of conflate who we are with what we do.

And I think it's critical to separate those things, right?

It's critical to know who you are and that, you know, although you're a CEO or founder of something, you are still this person that had this cool idea.

You are still this evolved baby that used to gurgle around and crawl around on the floor.

And so I think it's important to separate, you know, who you are and what you do so that you can make more balanced assessments of what's going on so that when you're making decisions, not necessarily, you know, killing idea doesn't mean killing a piece of you, right?

It's like you're just making decisions as objectively as possible.

So kind of managing that conflation between who I am and what I do, I think is very important, especially as you're transitioning and trying to figure yourself out from a college graduate to a, you know, professional.

- Mike, as you were crafting your bio and students here in our audience tonight are reading, the founder of company, founder of a few companies that your journey has included companies that fails.

- Yeah.

- That's a really interesting thing to include in an entrepreneur, a founder bio.

What's important about that?

- Yeah, I think the, in fact it's mostly failures, right?

80% failures.

I think the, one of the biggest things I've learned through those failures is that in order to find the ultimate thing that maybe you are good at or that you're gonna have value around, you have to go through a lot of repetitions.

And so one of the biggest pieces of advice I give to aspiring entrepreneurs or just people thinking about maybe one day I'll start a business, or even people wanting to take a leap into something else, maybe a different role in different industry is to just jump in, just get started.

Because you first have to go through those failures.

The first bet, the first at bat is probably not gonna go very well, but you're gonna learn from that and that's gonna be the launchpad to something else.

So never would've landed ultimately on Branch, which I think was my seventh business without going through the first four that failed, that got me to business school, where then I met my founders where we worked on company number five, which led to us to work on company number six, which ultimately led to the insight that led to Branch, but we never would've uncovered the opportunity with, that Branch had in the market had we not been through that journey.

So the best piece of advice is just get started.

Do something now, because you're gonna learn and you can just iterate.

What do these students, these student entrepreneurs here tonight need in the future at Bucknell?

- I think and you might have one already, a mentor or coaching system is really, really important.

And not necessarily once you're out, I'm in financial services, not just in that industry, getting a coach in that industry, but getting coaches in other industries.

I think that's imperative.

- Mentors, coaches.

- They hold you accountable and you can cry on their shoulder.

- Similarly, I think just surrounding yourself with an ecosystem of people that are supporting you, will cheer you on and can be there to help when you're, when you stumble.

My path was not linear.

When I started, I wanted to be in Silicon Valley specifically because I knew the culture there was one of, we're gonna test, we're gonna experiment and we're gonna fail along the way, but that's okay, that's accepted.

And I think surrounding yourself with people like that, that'll encourage you when you stumble and fall rather than say I told you so.

That's the, those are the type of people you surround yourself, whether it be mentors, whether it be family, whether it be friends.

- Like you're hitting on the nose.

I think giving them the opportunity to fail slash learn, right?

Like creating specific intentional opportunities to kind of overcome this ability, our innate capacity to fail and repurpose that failure into something more.

You know, he said it like seven times, done.

Now you look at where he is at, like, it's really cool.

So to give them, and even those that aren't entrepreneurs, give them an opportunity to experience that, you know, less than ideal or suboptimal outcome and give them the opportunity to make the most out of it in spite of it not being what they set out to do.

So I think what that does is that creates a mindset.

I'm a football player, so everything's a sport to me, right?

So I'm a, you know, was a football player, that mindset and really, you know, allow them to develop that over time.

And whether they're an entrepreneur or an employee or whatever they choose to do that, that kind of could be very helpful.

When you look at kids, yeah, I mean, go around and look at a kid you care about.

They get it.

They, my five year old, my eight year old, they just get the world in a way that we forgot as adults, as older people.

So, when you need inspiration, go watch a kid, dude.

Go watch a kid, do whatever they're doing, and you'll learn something about yourself that you've forgot you forgot.

- Fresh eyes, perhaps not clouded by the pessimism that this builds up in us.

So I think that's a great way to bring it back to the students here tonight.

They are full of optimism.

They are full of ideas.

And I'm really grateful for the three of you being here tonight to share your advice, to share your encouragement with these young entrepreneurs.

As they bring that optimism, they bring that persistence, and they bring their ideas into the world.

Thank you for being here.

We are now at the moment our student entrepreneurs have been waiting for, the awards for Bucknell Biz Pitch 2023.

First, Anthony Lewis will present the fan favorite prize.

- [Anthony] Yes, yes.

Is my mic on?

Yes.

So this one was, I agree with, the guys were pretty dope and they, you know, they did the whole lip licking and they knew they were feeling themselves when they were up here expressing what they were doing.

I thought Uncharted did a great job and the fans agreed.

So Uncharted.

(audience applauds) Great job, man.

Great job.

- Congratulations guys.

- You were the one licking your lips.

Great job, man.

- Thank you very much, Uncharted.

Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony, we'll have you back to our seat.

Our next presenter is Pam Gilmore, and she will come to the center stage and present our Changemaker prize.

- So am I allowed to tell you now?

We have a, I have a $2,500 check for a female, which I'm very excited to see so many females involved in this program and it goes to Prime-Air.

(audience applauds) - All right, our final prize.

First prize in Biz Pitch 2023 will be presented by Mike Molinet.

- Okay, so first of all, this was an incredible competition.

All eight folks that presented tonight were phenomenal from the semi-finalists.

Really incredible.

We're blown away.

We were talking, we had a really hard time actually deciding among the finalists, four really great pitches.

So thank you everyone that put the time into this and really well done.

We struggled.

We had four minutes and we struggled to really decide between all four.

And especially it came down to the last two and we were doing some calculations at the end.

And so it was very close.

And so while the Grand Prize will go to one team, all of you have done a phenomenal job and really impressed by everything that you've done.

So 5,000 Grand Prize Award goes to Uncharted.

(audience applauds) - Thank you.

- Well done, guys.

Very well done.

Very well done.

Here you go.

- Congratulations Uncharted and thank you audience for being here with us for Bucknell's Biz Pitch Competition.

I'd like to thank all of our students for their creativity and passion.

You are inspirations to all of us.

To our judges, thank you for your dedication and expertise.

Thank our viewers, this amazing audience here at Bucknell for joining us for tonight's Biz Pitch competition.

Additional thanks, College of Engineering, College of Management, Mike Mielo from the class of 1989, Roland Bell from the class of 1959, and a generous anonymous owner for supporting the prize money for our students tonight, the team of the Bucknell SBDC, including especially our students, Nolan Wynn, Colin Mitchum, and advocates for their excellence in all things Biz Pitch.

For our in-person audience, please stick around.

Right after this televised program, we'll have more announcements.

Take photos of each of our judges and our prize winners and there will be an opportunity for alumni, students, and guests to connect.

For more information about young entrepreneurs, please visit wvia.org/keystonebusiness and bucknell.edu/bizpitch.

And you can watch this program on demand anytime online or on the WVIA app for Keystone Edition, coming to you live from Bucknell University.

I'm Steve Stumbris.

Thank you for joining us for Biz Pitch 2023.

(jazzy music plays) (audience applauds)