Ding dong! Dinner is delivered … and deliver is what UW-Stevens Point marketing student Haley Densow did as she took first place at The Pitch, a startup business pitch competition featuring college students from around Northeast Wisconsin held at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute on April 24. [View Photos]
During the fast-paced business pitches with a four-minute time limit, Densow pitched DormDash, an on-campus food delivery system that allows students use their meal plans to have food delivered to their dorm rooms. Fellow UWSP Sentry School of Business and Economics student Alex Suscha also competed and shared his Sourcer AI idea that will give unbiased scores to online news articles using artificial intelligence.
For her DormDash concept, Densow took home the $10,000 cash prize, plus $15,000 of in-kind services such as startup financial consulting, marketing, e-commerce support, patent drafting services and prototyping design to further her entrepreneurial pursuits.
Densow beat out the field of 10 students from Lawrence University, St. Norbert College, UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point. The top three finishers split cash and in-kind prizes valued at $50,000. First place received $10,000 plus $15,000 in-kind prizes; second place $7,500 plus in-kind prizes; and third place $5,000 plus in-kind prizes.
“I couldn’t have been more impressed by the quality of pitches from all of the entrepreneurs, but of course I was very proud of how well Haley and Alex performed, particularly in our first year joining the competition,” said Kevin Neuman, head of the Sentry School of Business and Economics. “The Pitch will be a focal point of our ongoing efforts to foster a culture of entrepreneurship in the Sentry School.”
Densow, a sophomore from West Bend, and Sucha, a business administration sophomore from Sheboygan, qualified for The Pitch during a UW-Stevens Point campus qualifying round on Feb. 22.
The Pitch is organized by Fox Connection, a collaboration of premier colleges and universities in northeast Wisconsin to enhance entrepreneurial education and opportunity. Judges of The Pitch finals were Matthew Kee of Tundra Angels, Taylor Reetz of Nicolet National Bank, Kimberly Stoeger of Nutritional Healing, Maiyoua Thao of ABC Staffing and Andrew Schmitz of Gener8tor.
Related:
Blueprint365.org: Student entrepreneurs pitch business ideas, land cash prizes at Appleton event