On Tuesday, April 18 the Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship hosted the Business Plan Competition, a culmination of the entrepreneurship business pitch series for the 2022-2023 academic year.
“It’s a testament to the entrepreneurial mindset that’s going on at Belmont,” Program Coordinator for the Entrepreneurship Center Mitchell Barron said. “The fact that students from across the College of Business and across campus are creating businesses and putting themselves into the marketplace is really encouraging.”
Six student entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to a panel of alumni judges for a chance to win first, second and third place money-awarding prizes.
Sophomore Business System Analytics and Finance double major Jessica Finny won first place and received a $5,000 award for Chechi’s Chai which focuses on serving authentic and quality chai paired with popular South Indian street foods and sweets.
The second-place award of $2,000 went to senior Journalism major Julia Gigis for SwipeCruit, a job search platform that connects job seekers with quality company cultures.
Urban Gardens is an outdoor event space situated in the countryside of Williamson County founded by entrepreneurship and marketing major Austin Sorensen, won $1,000 for third place.
Alumni Drew Lamb ’14, founder of KLLW LLC, Willow Sprague ’18, co-founder of Barbees Bartending and Sarah Moseley ’17, founder of Songbird City served as judges for the competition.
Each year undergraduate students from all majors and programs are encouraged to apply for the Business Plan Competition. This year, a total of 30 students have presented their businesses for vendor prize money.
