Students Dive In at NVC

PROVO, Utah – Apr 17, 2018 – Although Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran weren’t present at the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s New Venture Challenge, there were still a number of judges swimming around the tank looking for a great startup to attack with an award.

As the school year comes to a close, so does the Miller Competition Series, which carried out its final phase of the competition where Fresh Stamp won Founder’s Choice with $5,000 and Portal Entryways won Audience Favorite with $2,000.  

“I was surprised but grateful,” says Eric Espinosa, founder of Fresh Stamp and an entrepreneurship junior from Los Molinos, California. “I think almost every other company has been working on their startup for about a year, and I’ve been working on this for a month, so I did not expect that.”

Fresh Stamp is an expiration date barcode add-on that allows inventory systems for grocery stores to manage batches. With the add-on, stores can identify what batch each item is from as the item stands out at the point-of-sale system. When items are about to expire, inventory systems can alert store personnel so they can discount or donate that batch as it gets closer to expiration.

“We want to eliminate unnecessary food waste,” Espinosa says. “The end goal is to save grocery stores’ money, get customers discounted food before it expires, and donate almost-expired food so it’s being used.”

Within the next month, Fresh Stamp hopes to continue gaining momentum as the company progresses and delivers on the potential to be successful that founders recognized and awarded.

Another startup with high potential is the reoccurring crowd favorite, Portal Entryways—rebranded from Piero—which is a system that opens wheelchair accessible doors with an app.

“We show that we can use capitalism to improve the quality of someone’s daily life,” says Morgen Glessing, founder of Portal Entryways and an entrepreneurship senior from Vancouver, Washington. “The double ROI between return on investment and return on impact creates an environment where people willingly support our mission as a company.”

The top eight teams in the New Venture Challenge were each awarded $15,000 and admitted to the summer-long Founders’ Launchpad Accelerator where students have the opportunity to work on their business in free office space, receive a personal mentor, attend exclusive workshops, and prepare for future investment.

“The Rollins Center has been crucial to our success,” Glessing says. “We are grateful to have such an awesome resource as students here at BYU.”

2018 NVC finalists won $15,000 each:

•    Portal Entryways
•    Fresh Stamp
•    Mentionables
•    Ori
•    Baywatch Technologies
•    Khione Outdoor Gear
•    The Barbacoa
•    Honeycomb

The BYU Marriott School of Business prepares men and women of faith, character, and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Named for benefactors J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott, the school is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. BYU Marriott has four graduate and ten undergraduate programs with an enrollment of approximately 3,300 students.