A group of entrepreneurial students from across Dane County will pitch businesses they’ve been working on for the past nine weeks, with a chance to win funding at CEOs of Tomorrow’s bi-annual Pitch and Launch competition on Saturday, Dec. 13.
CEOs of Tomorrow, a local nonprofit that teaches youth to nurture social entrepreneurship, works with a cohort of students throughout the year to build up their entrepreneurial business ventures. The competition culminates nine weeks of work building their respective businesses with a pitch and full launch of their ventures for the chance to win money to continue their entrepreneurial path.
Saturday’s event will see five students give 5-minute pitches for their products and a chance to earn $1,000 for first place. The second-place finisher will receive $500, third-place $250 and $150 will go to the people’s choice winner.
“They spent the last nine weeks refining those, and they’re looking forward to selling them at the Pitch and Launch,” said DeAndre Martin, CEO of CEOs of Tomorrow. “One thing that we hit on in our program is the social issues portion, so each of our students picks a social issue that their business can combat.”
An example for this round of the social issues that will be tackled at Pitch and Launch is a student who created a t-shirt company that uses sustainable materials.
Its focus is on combating air pollution and the rampant waste of clothes that finds its way into landfills. An estimated 92 million tons of garments end up in landfills every year, Earth.org reported.
An additional portion of the event will feature students selling their goods. Each student has a limited 25 samples of their products that they will sell to attendees. Martin encourages attendees to show up as early as possible, as the limited stock can go quickly.
This Saturday’s Pitch and Launch also marks the second one Martin has been involved with since becoming CEO earlier this year, after CEOs of Tomorrow founder Dr. Roxie Hentz retired. It’s been a bit of a learning experience for him, but the program has made improvements towards making the program better for students.
“This one I feel excited about because we know a little bit more, or at least I know a little bit more than I did prior,” Martin said. “Logistics-wise, I feel a lot better.”
Martin became the CEO of CEOs of Tomorrow a couple of months before the spring round for the Pitch and Launch.
He notes that some logistical complications to ensure students had all they needed muddied the experience a little bit for students, but he has it down now.
“It takes a long time to think through what a product can look like,” he said. “On the other side of that is that we have to order products and materials. Last semester, I think we ordered a little late, so some students didn’t have everything they needed.”
Moving the acquisition of material process earlier into the program and hiring a full-time youth business coach — Mike Saucedo — helped solve the issue.
“It’s super exciting to get that right this time. When you work for nine weeks and you don’t have everything you need to sell your stuff, it can be very disheartening,” Martin said. “It was hard to see our students go through that. They did still kill it.”
The Pitch and Launch will be held Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Madison College Truax Campus, 1701 Wright St. Pitches will kick off at noon, the market will take place between 2:10-3 p.m. and winners will be announced at 3:10 p.m.
It is free to attend; registration is required.
