Who will decide
The competition will see as many as 40 teams from nearly every college on campus compete for cash prizes totaling over $30,000 in seed funding! Business model pitches are evaluated on company technology, management, financials, and market by thirty industry-respected leaders serving as judges from companies all across the region.
Join us for an exciting week of competition divisions, all leading to the BankTEL Grand Finale on Friday.
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:30 PM | Elevator Pitch Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
Think you have a good business idea? Present your business idea before a panel of judges and see how it compares to the ideas of your fellow students. The winner will receive $500 for the best 90-second pitch. The term "elevator pitch" captures the ability of an entrepreneur to have his or her business concept down so tightly and effectively that he or she could walk into a hypothetical elevator, meet a potential investor, and convey the essence of his or her business by the time the elevator reaches the 20th floor. You should be able to deliver your pitch in 90 seconds.
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:30 PM | Business Concept Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
| 7:15 PM | New Product I Division Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
The Business Concept Competition is an opportunity to pitch a raw business idea. Participating teams will typically have not begun any execution, and teams will be evaluated on the overall feasibility and potential of the idea.
This division is for entrepreneurs who are working to commercialize a new innovation-based product that can scale internationally. The Division I includes teams who have not built a customer-ready prototype or if participating in VentureCatalyst, would generally be before ECAB.
Examples: signal searching drone, light-up ice cube, new video game, etc.
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:30 PM | Best Brand Division Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
| 7:15 PM | New Product II Division Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
This division is for people who working on creating the next popular online brand. This brand needs to have a strong platform that will appeal to its target customer with evidence of what it will be selling.
Examples: new clothing brand, coffee brand, sports brand, etc.
This division is for entrepreneurs who are working to commercialize a new innovation-based product that can scale internationally. The Division II includes teams who have built a customer-ready prototype or if participating in VentureCatalyst, would generally be after PREP and before ECAB.
Examples: signal searching drone, light-up ice cube, new video game, etc.
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:30 PM | Brick and Mortar Division Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
| 7:15 PM | New Product Division III Competition | Watch the RECORDING on YouTube |
Join us as retired CEO of Knology, Inc, Rodger Johnson joins to share his story of taking a company from losing $20M/yr to a $1.5B exit with the Spring 2019 Jack Hatcher Entrepreneurship Seminar. You won't want to miss this story!
This division is for people who are working on a retail, service, or lifestyle company that will be brick and mortar.
Examples: new coffee shop, local boutique, repair service, etc.
This division is for entrepreneurs who are working to commercialize a new innovation-based product that can scale internationally. The Division III includes teams who have built a customer-ready prototype or if participating in VentureCatalyst, would generally be after ECAB.
Examples: signal searching drone, light-up ice cube, new video game, etc.
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00 PM | BankTEL Grand Finale Competition | Watch LIVE on YouTube |
| 6:00 PM | Alumni Pitch Competition | Watch LIVE on YouTube |
| 7:00 PM | Closing Reception & Awards Ceremony | Watch LIVE on YouTube |
Join us for heavy hors d'oeuvres and beverages as we celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of Mississippi State University and the Bulldog Family!
This division is for Mississippi State alumni who are working on a new venture and would like to share that with the Entrepreneurship Center and our board members. This division will be an hour before our E-Center 10 Year Anniversary celebration.
The BankTEL Grand Finale is composed of the winners of all 5 preceding competitions to name one startup to take home the grand prize!
Join us as we listen to startup teams who are competing for the grand prize in Startup Summit 2021S. Check out the strong list of competitors below!
Founder: Tatayuana DeAndrea
Here at Watch & Learn ESL we specialize in helping ESL students of all ages and backgrounds speak confidently and correctly. We are a company dedicated to helping not only our students but also the community! We plan on offering many different pathways to learning. We will offer monthly online courses, textbooks, workbooks, and private online tutoring. Our goal is to teach the ESL world and help them achieve their English speaking goals. While offering lower class prices than the competition, we will also donate 10% of all profits to local charities.
Founder: Monique Robinson
Over the last few years, news industries have shifted culture by embracing the authentic black female and male and no longer denying positions based on deeply rooted systemic racial issues like hair style or skin color. In 2021, black meteorologists are being hired as pioneers at television stations in towns and regions that have never seen black Americans in these roles previously. This startup is dedicated to providing a platform that develops, encourages and supports rising minorities with an interest in meteorology with panel discussions, networking events, interactive science lessons, and mentorship.
Founder: Alix Waldrep
Duke's Farm Co. will be a female owned fresh meat market, specializing in beef and pork sourced from local farms. Providing locally grow seasonal produce, ranging from muscadines, black-eyed peas, squash, all the way to fresh eggs. Duke's Farm Co. will stock basic feed and seed supplies to support local farmers and gardeners in organic raising of their livestock and produce. Since Duke's Farm Co. is located near a 38,000 acre wildlife management area, a unique aspect of the shop is being the only seasonal whitetail deer processor in the county.
Founder: Alix Waldrep
Duke's Farm Co. will be a female owned fresh meat market, specializing in beef and pork sourced from local farms. Providing locally grow seasonal produce, ranging from muscadines, black-eyed peas, squash, all the way to fresh eggs. Duke's Farm Co. will stock basic feed and seed supplies to support local farmers and gardeners in organic raising of their livestock and produce. Since Duke's Farm Co. is located near a 38,000 acre wildlife management area, a unique aspect of the shop is being the only seasonal whitetail deer processor in the county.
Founder: Jeff Hill
Many local Humane Societies are distanced out from the urban areas, but need volunteers to walk the dogs. Many elderly people go to city parks and are alone. I would like to propose the idea of building a public area dog park. It would mimc a local zoo. Dogs and cats could have their own exhibition areas such as tall logs or rope swings to climb up, or bridges crossing over small streams, at the same time, the public could enter into areas and walk the dogs or pet the cats. This would give the elderly or other challenged groups, who normally live stagnant lives, the chance to interact with the animals. Their volunteer service could save money on otherwise staff to be hired.
Founder: Sara Lizariturry
This startup is a service delivered online and it will help athletes manage their emotions in and out of the field. It will help them start a journey of self-discovery and also find ways to be more calm inside the field or court to perform better. For this final goal, the startup will give in hands of the clients tools such as yoga, meditation, mindfulness, creation of habits, coaching sessions to get to a better management of emotions.
Founder: Shuvam Saha
Triton Aerospace offers a one-stop solution for modular hydrogen fuel cell-powered UAVs with an extended range. Currently, consumer UAVs run on battery power which provides a limited flight time (usually under 45 minutes) and extended charge times. Fuel cells running on hydrogen have higher energy to mass ratio than battery-based systems and can be refueled in minutes. They provide an environment-friendly solution for extending the range (by up to 3X) with heavier payloads in a simple, cost-effective, robust, and lightweight package. Some applications may include medical/consumer logistics, military applications, surveillance, disaster relief, and farming.
Founder: Shane O'Toole
Performance Footwear and Accessory brand based on advanced manufacturing methods that reduce or eliminate waste, coupled with bioengineered materials from recycled or natural sources formulated to biodegrade in landfill conditions.
Founder: Abigail Nichols
Our startup's product is an elastic maternity band worn to monitor the baby's heartbeat as well as increase the ability of the fetus to hear its parent's voices. This is accomplished through embedding speakers and microphones within the elastic band. This band not only has consumer appeal but can be used to research the effect of music on fetal development.
Founder: Denise Adair
Food storage containers and lids are difficult to keep paired together. 68% of consumers we surveyed have experienced frustrations within the last 30 days due to storage container bases being separated from their lids.Our product, the Affixer, solves this consumer problem. It is a system to help consumers get and keep their food storage containers organized. The Affixer retrofits to any storage container the consumer has in their cabinet, drawers, or pantry. The Affixer is dishwasher and microwave safe.
Founder: Hunt Walne
As agriculture has become commercialized and commoditized, consumers are faced with fewer and fewer original varieties of plant products. Additionally, as consumer spending on food has increased, consumers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for products that align with their values, whether natural, organic, ecological, sustainable, etc. Big River Peas aims to produce ecologically grown, heirloom cowpea varieties for consumers who prioritize where their food comes from, how it is made, and the varieties they consume. Cowpeas hold a deep history in Mississippi and are highly productive in the local climate.
Founder: Tristan Shaw
a phone app/website offering detailed descriptions and reviews of fitness facilities in a given area to assist consumers in finding the right place for them. offering affordable advertisement and engagement with consumers for smaller, lesser known gyms and supplement companies. other uses of this would assist experienced fitness practitioners in finding temporary gyms for their travels/vacations.
Founder: Sangam Gyawali
An automated Attendance and symptom checking system that ensures a fast, contactless, and safer way to attend in-person classes using Artificial intelligence, RDBMS, and Cloud to take attendance, check symptoms, and notifies the instructor of an abnormal case, at a reasonable price. This would be an automated system with great UX and UI. This would exclusively for Educational Institutions.
Founder: Carson Chickvara
Bellissimo Processo is a direct lever press espresso machine that is engineered to offer the best espresso shot. Through quality materials and a rugged yet elegant design the machine gives the user a pleasant hands-on experience to pull a shot for their enjoyment.
Founder: Qwantaria Russell
This will be an app for all things surrounding and catered to black businesses. This app will give people direct contact with black-owned businesses and small businesses. It will allow artists also to build their portfolios. This app will not discriminate against any other race.
Founder: Henyers Baltar
I want to take computation to a new level. Starting with STEM education, this product has the potential to provide our users with the opportunity to not only visualize what is often difficult to understand, but also provide a fun interactive learning experience.
Founder: Christopher Nalls
The Mississippi Hat Company is a hat company that sells custom millinery ranging from Kentucky derby, church hats, men's hats and fascinators.
Founder: Anna Lewis
Happy&Co. originally started as an idea to raise awareness for mental health, but as I have gone along the journey of building this brand I have found that we can advocate for more than just mental health. The vision behind the brand is to create a community built on the principles of happiness and unity. We want to do this by supporting different foundations for different causes. For example, we want to support breast cancer awareness in October by creating a pink collection. We will then give a percentage of our profits to an organization related to breast cancer awareness. Happy&Co. is more than just a company, we have a purpose. We offer consumers the opportunity to take action on real issues. We want to create a widely known brand by simply selling happiness.
Founder: Andrew Moran
A company based on raising ecological awareness by producing 100% biodegradable/organic products. Products include apparel, primarily t-shirts, medicinal plant products and extracts, and research pertaining to recently released literature.
Founder: Christopher Nalls
The Mississippi Hat Company is a hat company that sells custom millinery ranging from Kentucky derby, church hats, men's hats and fascinators.
Founder: Riley Baker
It is a streetwear brand centered around the idea of creativity and color. Apparel will start of being made of cotton but eventually turn to being hemp based.
Founder: Asia Tillman
All TRU is an apparel brand that is meant to empower and inspire the everyday fashionista with extraordinary style and grace.
Founder: Shaniya Moore
Boogee is a lifestyle brand created to empower and encourage youth and adults. As a lifestyle brand, Boogee is designed to be a catalyst of change to help individuals find their true worth in God, live in purpose; and in a society that is the same, encourage individuals to have courage to be different. Boogee's message of empowerment is shared through fashion. It is where faith meets fashion and it is in our hope that in our brand's message we are able to connect and challenge the barriers of society to empower people , young or old, to find what makes them Boogee.
Founder: Stone Vincent
Development of entirely biodegradable, sustainably produced, vegan leathers consisting of fungal mycelium. Materials are naturally stable, scratch-resistant, and hydrophobic, which makes them an ideal alternative to current leather products on the mass market. Materials can be grown more efficiently and with fewer resources than other leather materials available to date.
Founder: Taylor Barr
We provide ways for actors to learn their lines faster and for theatres to work more effectively.
Founder: Timothy Wunrow
Selective noise cancelling technology for people suffering from Misophonia to remove trigger sounds from their environment without isolating them.
Founder: Stone Vincent
Development of entirely biodegradable, sustainably produced, vegan leathers consisting of fungal mycelium. Materials are naturally stable, scratch-resistant, and hydrophobic, which makes them an ideal alternative to current leather products on the mass market. Materials can be grown more efficiently and with fewer resources than other leather materials available to date.
Founder: Chinwe Okorie
Les Pieds~Chic is a Fashion shoe design and manufacturing company. We are focused in offering quality, stylish, fashionable, and sexy shoes to our clients. Our high focus in quality allows sturdiness of our shoes. We source experts in shoe manufacturing using comfortable, breathable, and fashionable materials to design our shoes. Purposefully, to achieve fashionable and high-quality shoes for your feet and for an around the clock wear.
Founder: Nathaniel Williams
Novelty House is a subscription-based streaming service that allows avid bookworms to read books through a thrilling, mobile readership platform; anywhere and anytime. We're the literary equivalent of enticing TV shows, right on your phone! We make reading and publishing easy through our user and writer-friendly platform and are transforming how we produce and consume books by giving readers affordable and engaging content across several genres; We encourage authors to relinquish their inner writer and propel their careers at the forefront of subscription-based authorship. We offer unique content and writers innovative ways to build an audience and monetize their work.
Founder: Eric Anderson
The Portable Osteometric Devices (P.O.D.) is a new research tool for measuring bone length using laser sensors. These devices use time-of-flight technology to measure to increase researchers' accuracy and precision for measuring bone length.
Founder: Nate Phillips
Teachers of special needs individuals make use of an approach called discrete trial training to teach low-level learners. This process is very burdensome and requires the creation of physical decks (typically on note cards) and intensive data collection. Our application automates this process. This is expected to provide value to teachers by reducing the time costs for building decks, eliminating effort spent creating and maintaining data sheets, and by potentially increasing involvement among other stakeholders.
Founder: Alyssa Olive
oLive is pronounced alive, because every product that we offer is geared toward helping you improve your quality of life. We sell fruit and vegetable juices that are made from produce only. There are no artificial colors or flavors! All of our products are vegan and clean. oLive's juicing process strips the produce of it insoluble fiber, allowing your body to absorb the nutrients from fruits and vegetables instantly and without the effort of digestion. Juicing is used to heal all kinds of minor and serious health issues. We started oLive by selling juice at our local farmers market. After a few months, the strong demand for our drinks along with the personal improvements that our regular customers reported encouraged my to take this business to the next level. oLive will be opening a storefront selling cold-pressed juices, whole food smoothies, herbal teas, and all natural skin products this semester.
Founder: Lamicheal Moss
My business is an unique cheesecake bakery with additional desserts being featured weekly. It will provide an additional locations for people to get desserts.
Founder: Jazzmin Butler
National Pan-Hellenic Council also known as Divine 9 (Historically Black Greek-Letter Organizations) having a store catered to them, their style, and culture. Featuring other black owned businesses, while also having custom made pieces. I will also be using Silk screening for the designs .
Founder: Lamicheal Moss
My business is an unique cheesecake bakery with additional desserts being featured weekly. It will provide an additional locations for people to get desserts.
Founder: Jertia Evans
My startup will be an all inclusive one stop shop. I want to offer my community a place where they can get their hair done, eyelash extension, and custom made clothes. Eventually I would like to add a couple nail techs and other hair dressers.
Founder: Joshua Hamann
A family-friendly arcade that brings you back in time; a retro feel to a modern arcade. Featuring arcade games old and new, there is something everyone will love. With the addition of glow in the dark mini-golf and laser tag, friend and family gatherings can be made even more memorable. And when you are feeling hungry, you can go to the diner and bar area, where friends and families can enjoy great food without breaking the bank.
Founder: Jordan Bryant
With sleep deprivation and stress increasing with college students, Capsule Hall is a solution for MSU students. Inspired by the Japanese pod hotel, Capsule Hall is a place where faculty and students (especially those who has to drive to and from campus) can go in order to rest between classes and studying sessions.
Founder: Arianna Howell
Curl Crew Beauty sells ,markets, and informs about black-owned haircare brands ,informs about haircare down to the ingredients while supporting the Buy Black initiative.
Founder: Ashley McLemore
Made by Ashley Mac provides melt in your mouth decorated sugar cookies and moist buttercream cakes that are made with quality ingredients. It specializes in custom treats for any special occasion in the Starkville, MS area.
Founder: ShaCariana Kornegay
Foodville is a foodtruck company that gives customers the opportunity of creating their own appetizing meal by building their loaded fries.
Founder: James Watters
Real-time football analytics and data visualization. Currently all analytics tools on the market are useless in the coach's pressbox because they use the internet. We took it offline. We categorize and visualize data in coaches terms. No more arbitrary metrics.
Founder: Cameron Maddox
Dealio provides tonight's food and drink deals in a curated text to our users. Instead of users having to scan through social media, blog posts, or websites, the daily deals are sent in a single text to provide users more information about where to go out to eat or drink.
Founder: Clayton Spaulding
Aerostrip is a product which works to reduce rain spatter on windshields when driving in precipitation.
Founder: Cameron Maddox
Dealio provides tonight's food and drink deals in a curated text to our users. Instead of users having to scan through social media, blog posts, or websites, the daily deals are sent in a single text to provide users more information about where to go out to eat or drink.
Founder: Tai Evans
A helmet drying apparatus that dries sweat out of helmets to prevent bacteria growth and reduce moisture in helmets.
Founder: Neil Hickman
Our product is a feeding bottle for baby cattle.
Founder: Shuvam Saha
Triton Aerospace offers a one-stop solution for modular hydrogen fuel cell-powered UAVs with an extended range. Currently, consumer UAVs run on battery power which provides a limited flight time (usually under 45 minutes) and extended charge times. Fuel cells running on hydrogen have higher energy to mass ratio than battery-based systems and can be refueled in minutes. They provide an environment-friendly solution for extending the range (by up to 3X) with heavier payloads in a simple, cost-effective, robust, and lightweight package. Some applications may include medical/consumer logistics, military applications, surveillance, disaster relief, and farming.
Founder: Stone Vincent
Development of entirely biodegradable, sustainably produced, vegan leathers consisting of fungal mycelium. Materials are naturally stable, scratch-resistant, and hydrophobic, which makes them an ideal alternative to current leather products on the mass market. Materials can be grown more efficiently and with fewer resources than other leather materials available to date.
Founder: Christopher Nalls
The Mississippi Hat Company is a hat company that sells custom millinery ranging from Kentucky derby, church hats, men's hats and fascinators.
Founder: Alyssa Olive
oLive is pronounced alive, because every product that we offer is geared toward helping you improve your quality of life. We sell fruit and vegetable juices that are made from produce only. There are no artificial colors or flavors! All of our products are vegan and clean. oLive's juicing process strips the produce of it insoluble fiber, allowing your body to absorb the nutrients from fruits and vegetables instantly and without the effort of digestion. Juicing is used to heal all kinds of minor and serious health issues. We started oLive by selling juice at our local farmers market. After a few months, the strong demand for our drinks along with the personal improvements that our regular customers reported encouraged my to take this business to the next level. oLive will be opening a storefront selling cold-pressed juices, whole food smoothies, herbal teas, and all natural skin products this semester.
Founder: James Watters
Real-time football analytics and data visualization. Currently all analytics tools on the market are useless in the coach's pressbox because they use the internet. We took it offline. We categorize and visualize data in coaches terms. No more arbitrary metrics.
Founder: Stone Vincent
Development of entirely biodegradable, sustainably produced, vegan leathers consisting of fungal mycelium. Materials are naturally stable, scratch-resistant, and hydrophobic, which makes them an ideal alternative to current leather products on the mass market. Materials can be grown more efficiently and with fewer resources than other leather materials available to date.
Founder: Landon Casey
Prototype and Product Development Company that helps to bring ideas to life.
Founder: Terrence Green Jr
My startup teaches people how to make animated videos in weeks using a drag and drop software
Founder: Terrence Green Jr
My startup teaches people how to make animated videos in weeks using a drag and drop software
Founder: Justin Matthews
Utter is a social media trivia game that pulls the VIRAL moments from Twitter and puts them in the action. You plug in you and your friends accounts and you guess who tweeted what. If you don't have a twitter account that is no problem, because we have categories where we've handpicked the best accounts from sports, movies, and parodies for you to play on. This game is the only one of its kind. You can play it at a small gathering or over Zoom. There are no downloads required, no twitter account required, and all fun.
Founder: Marshall Davis
Capturing the market of phone sanitizing in public places with the Automatic Phone Cleaning Station that is Safe Swipe
Fowlkes Auditorium, Colvard Student Union,
Starkville, MS
