{"id":93579,"date":"2015-04-03T11:55:32","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T15:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=93579"},"modified":"2018-06-04T09:20:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T13:20:52","slug":"with-at-least-5000-in-the-offing-student-entrepreneurs-pitch-business-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2015\/04\/03\/with-at-least-5000-in-the-offing-student-entrepreneurs-pitch-business-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"With at least $5,000 in the offing, student entrepreneurs pitch business ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matt<\/a>

Matt Perejda ’14, keynote speaker at the Bobcat Ventures pitch competition on April 4, 2015, is shown in 2014 with Analysis Group co-founder Bruce Stangle ’70. Stangle visited campus for the Voices in Entrepreneurship program. (Sarah Crosby\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

“If you’ve been interested in hearing how entrepreneurs grab attention and funding for their start-up, for a prototype for a product or the development of an app, this is a must-see competition,” says Mike Mulach ’17, an organizer of the April 4 business pitch throw-down at Bates.<\/p>\n

Bobcat Ventures, a student organization dedicated to entrepreneurship, is sponsoring the competition for prizes of $5,000 or more starting at noon Saturday in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. Please RSVP at this link: https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/bobcat-ventures-entrepreneurship-competition-tickets-16340891045<\/a><\/p>\n

Featuring 11 student teams who will make brief entrepreneurial pitches to a panel of alumni judges, the event begins with a keynote address by entrepreneur Matt Perejda ’14. The competition winner will be announced around 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

Each team comprises up to four members, and each pitch will last 10 minutes or less, explains Mulach, a member of Bobcat Ventures from Rocky River, Ohio.<\/p>\n

“The pace will be lively, the ideas will be fascinating and there’s serious cash at stake,” he says, likening the event to ABC-TV’s “Shark Tank.”<\/p>\n

As a student, Perejda, the event’s keynote speaker, launched Bobcat Den Delivery, a successful college-based startup that sells and delivers late-evening snacks and meals from the college’s Dining Services operation to Bates students on campus.<\/p>\n

Here are the alumni judges:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ross Brockman ’11, co-founder of the craft cider brewery Downeast Ciderhouse, who was named one of “30 Under 30” by Forbes magazine;<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Patrick Jackson ’11, co-founder of SunRaise Investments, a Portland, Maine-based firm that provides solar-generated electricity to help nonprofit groups achieve financial savings and environmental leadership;<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Victor Otley III ’83, a managing partner at The Gores Group, a private equity firm with approximately $3.5 billion in assets.<\/p>\n

The competition’s case prizes are underwritten by sponsors including Bruce Stangle ’70, chair and co-founder of the Boston-based consulting firm Analysis Group Inc. and a longtime supporter and mentor of students interested in entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

Other members of Bobcat Ventures are Michelle Pham ’15 of Vancouver, British Columbia; Rokya Samake ’15 of New York City; Creighton Foulkes ’17 of Belmont, Mass.; Phathutshedzo Rambau ’17 of Morebeng, South Africa; and Shanina van Gent ’18 of Maassluis, Netherlands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bobcat Ventures, a Bates College student organization dedicated to entrepreneurship, is sponsoring a business idea competition on April 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":77134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,11012],"tags":[10707,1859,1891,3282,11047],"class_list":["post-93579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-student-life","tag-bobcat-ventures","tag-bruce-stangle","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93579"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93762,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93579\/revisions\/93762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}