IdeaBuild Results On March 24th, The Burton D. Morgan Center for Integrated Entrepreneurship at Hiram College hosted the 2022 IdeaBuild.  The IdeaBuild is a competition for students to pitch an innovative idea to a panel of judges for a chance to receive $1,500 in total prize money! The judges determine the top three finishers based on the overall idea, market needs, and quality of the presentation. A separate prize of $900 was also awarded for the best sustainable idea. This year had some great presentations and ideas from all nine groups/individuals that participated. Let's check out the winners! 1st Place - Landfill Gym Bags Landfill Gym Bags was an idea presented by Tommy Rink. The idea was to purchase canvas material clothes at a heavy discount from clothing manufacturers before they get burned or sent to landfills. Tommy would then use the materials from the clothes to make a duffle bag that would be sold to consumers. The bags would be marketed to ...

  IdeaBuild Coming Up! The Entrepreneurship Spring idea pitch competition will be held in Dix Dinning Hall on Thursday, March 24th from 5-7:30pm. The Ideabuild is a competition for students to pitch an innovative idea to a panel of judges for a chance to receive $1,500 in total prize money! The judges will determine the top three finishers based on the overall idea, market needs, and quality of the presentation.  2020 IdeaBlitz Winners Mentor Highlight - Robbie Anderson Robbie Anderson is a member of the Hiram Mentorship Program and currently the owner of a State Farm Agency in North Olmsted, Ohio. Robbie graduated from the University of Houston in 1993 with an accounting focused M.B.A. After graduation, he worked at Continental Airlines for 21 years and worked his way up to the Vice President position for the Cleveland Hub. Robbie then became the President of Cargo for United Airlines in Chicago before returning to the Cleveland area to open his own State Farm Agency....

  Student Venture Update As discussed in a previous blog , three groups of Hiram entrepreneurship students are currently running their own business on campus. The three businesses include Mad Batter, Hiram Tees, and Tribe Clothing Brand. With the semester coming to an end, these businesses are looking to end strong! Mad Batter is a baked goods business that is focused on selling to students on Hiram campus. They have totaled an estimated 300+ sales in a short span of two months. The team plans to continue following their business plan and grow their sales.  Hiram Tees is a T-shirt business that is focused on making unique shirts with funny slogans. The team slightly changed their business plan and decided to accept custom orders. To make the custom orders, the team purchased a printing press so they could create the shirt in-house and decrease the turnaround time on the order. The team is still working towards increasing their sale...

Whoa Dough & Camdyn Miller Camdyn is a Hiram senior from Creston, Ohio and is set to graduate in December of 2022. She is majoring in Accounting and Financial Management with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a member of multiple clubs and leadership positions including Accounting Club, Hiram Women's Soccer, and the Alumni Calling Program.  Last semester, Camdyn was apart of the student ran venture class (ENTR 30600) where she and her group worked with a healthy snack bar company, Whoa Dough .  Although the class ended last semester, Camdyn decided to continue working with Whoa Dough because she had a vision of bringing the snack bar onto Hiram College. The snack bar comes in six different flavors and are sold at $2.50 per bar. She plans to sell the bars to students and get clubs and sport teams to purchase the bars in bulk for fundraisers. Camdyn is also in the process of creating a social media platform in hopes to gain customer attraction.  The plan of selli...

Student Spotlight - David Angarita David is a sophomore from Eustis, Florida and set to graduate in the spring of 2024 with a major in Biomedical Humanities and a minor in Entrepreneurship. He is currently a member of the football team and works in the athletic training center.  David decided to pick up the entrepreneurship minor because he felt that it would work well with his desired career in dentistry.  In the summer, David will be working as an intern at a dental practice in his home town of Eustis. After graduation, David will attend dental school and  plans to eventually open and run his own dentistry practice. He believes that the entrepreneurship minor will allow him to gain the necessary skills needed to successfully run his own practice in the future.  David Angarita Mentor Spotlight - Todd Loschelder Todd is the President at Schneller LLC and a member of the mentorship program at Hiram College. Todd lives in Macedonia, Ohio and gradua...

  Student Businesses A course for Hiram's Entrepreneurship program allows students to design a business from scratch and operate it for the duration of the semester. The students get to choose their business partners and then work together to write a 20+ page business plan, which they will later use as their blueprint for the business. The groups have a free choice in what kind of business they create and how they choose to operate. Once the business plan is complete, the groups are provided $200 of startup funds to help launch the business off the ground. The objective is for the businesses to turn a profit and for the students to learn the necessary skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur. Let's take a look at the group's businesses! Mad Batter Mad Batter is a business ran by JoRee Yabarra, Faith Kawamura, and Reyna Polly. Their business model is to make and sell baked goods such as brownies, cookies, cake pops, and much more. They plan to sell the baked goods thro...

  High Performance Program (HPP) The HPP is a program that consists of highly motivated students who wish to develop strong communication and leadership skills. Each student in the High Performance Program is matched with a successful entrepreneur to help mentor the student. Additionally, students in the HPP are a member of Toastmasters, a professional group focused on improving public speaking and communication.  The High Performance Program is excited to announce the addition of four new students! The newest members include: freshman Dylan Philpott, sophomore Aidan Stephens, sophomore Ethan Barnes, and sophomore Reyna Polly. With the addition of the new members, the program now holds about 15 total students.  Last week, the program had a meeting to discuss the status of the mentor-mentee relationships. Some students were assigned to different mentors that better fit their interests. For example, a student that had an int...