Through the Ciocca Center for Business, Ethics, and Society, the College held its annual Shark Tank Competition on Thursday, March 28. Entrepreneurship Week ended with a bang as the six competing teams went all-in asking for the big cash prize: Bidly, Equanimity Project, Feel Good Dog Food, Pledger, Sanctuary, and Wilox.
Thank you to our judges for making the tough decisions!
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- Mary Moran ‘77, CEO at MCM Financial Consulting
- PJ Sansonetti ’93, General Manager, Carole Kitchen and Bath Design
- Roy Vella ‘90, Business Development, Ripple
- Daniel Klinghard, Director of JD Power Center at Holy Cross
›Judging for the Ignite Fund Recipient
In-Kind Services Awards:
- Matt Campbell ‘14 at Neurala will advise Bidly on sales and business development.
- Diego Mas Gonzalez ‘12 at General Assembly will advise Sanctuary on user experience.
- Bill Kelly ‘92 at Exosome Diagnostics will advise Feel Good Dog Food on scaling the business.
- John Loughnane ‘87 at Nutter will provide Wilox with a Power Legal Lunch.
Cash Prize Awards: A tie for first place!
- Feel Good Dog Food: $3,000
- Wilox: $3,000
- Sanctuary won $2,600
- the “People’s Choice” award: $100
- the Ignite Fund: $2,600
Curious what these student-run businesses are all about?
Feel Good Dog Food
This dog food brand is an alternative to basic kibble with ingredients you know, you can pronounce, and you can trust. Even better, this dog food is affordable. Team members include Matthew Gasparrini ‘20, Ben Vesey ‘22, Aidan Scamby ‘22, and Ray Li ‘22.
With tough competition on all fronts, Feel Good Dog Food tied for first place with competitor Wilox, taking home a prize of $3,000 to grow their business along with in-kind services from Bill Kelly ‘92, CFO at Exosome Diagnostics.
Wilox
Wilox is a long-lasting coating that can be applied to a variety of surfaces to kill bacteria and viruses to prevent the spread of disease.
This team is a big one: John Bowen ‘22, Mike Brown ‘19, Joe Egan ‘19, Nolan Howard ‘19, Luke Knox ‘22, Eric Lane ‘21, Mary Anne Wiley ‘22 and Paul Wiley ‘20.
Tying for first place with competitor Feel Good Dog Food, Wilox took home $3,000 to grow their business and in-kind services from alumnus John Loughnane ‘87 of Power Legal Lunch.
Sanctuary
As the idea of “there’s an app for that” became true for nearly anything one could think of, our phones were left with countless apps, oftentimes for very small and niche things. Sanctuary is taking a step to clean up our phones a bit while making college campuses and beyond a safer place by providing a comprehensive security app that integrates campus security and services into a single platform.
The team, made up of Mike Brown ‘19, Nolan Howard ‘19, Mike Lyons ‘19, and James Gould ‘20, won big at the annual Shark Tank Competition, receiving the Ignite Fund of $2,500, taking home the “People’s Choice Award” of $100, and in-kind services from alumnus Diego Mas Gonzalez ‘12, a UX Design Instructional Associate at General Assembly in NYC.
Bidly
Every year, Small Business Saturday follows the national “holiday” of Black Friday. It’s a great opportunity to go and support the small, local businesses in your area, but it doesn’t only have to be once a year. Enter Bidly, a marketing service that provides users with various discounts to local businesses, thus helping us all to shop local on a more frequent basis.
The team is comprised of Colin Boylan ‘22 and his colleague Paine Matiscik, a recent alumnus from Rice University. At this year’s Shark Tank, Bidly received in-kind services from alumnus Matt Campbell ‘14, account executive at Neurala in the Greater Boston Area.
We would like to thank our two other competing teams, The Equanimity Project and Pledger for your hard work and participation!
The Equanimity Project seeks to provide more personal mental health resources and decrease the stigma that we often find surrounding mental health treatment on college campuses. Headed by Tim Doyle ‘21, the team also includes Kerry Grumka ‘21, Max Krause ‘21, Tom Cremins ‘21.
Pledger, an app-based project, is run by Michael Mackintire ‘20 along with colleagues Mike Calcaterra ‘20 and Will Thomas ‘22. This task-based, two-sided, peer-to-peer marketplace is a place for users to request unskilled jobs to be completed and also fulfill other users’ requested tasks for monetary compensation around college campuses. The team is working on marketing and app functionality and is set to release during the early fall semester.
Special thanks to Ja-Nae Duane, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and the HC Launch Team for organizing such a great event! Check out photos from the event on Facebook.
Thanks for reading! Cassie
Cassie Gevry, Associate Director of Student Engagement
Ciocca Center for Business, Ethics, and Society
