For most, watching ABC’s “Shark Tank” is an entertaining, albeit somewhat removed, experience. For attendees at the Boston University BUzz Lab’s kickoff event, it was a reality.
The lab’s kickoff event on Friday, “You Be the Shark,” featured startups by BU graduate students, who all competed against each other for $5,000 in funding and exposure. Provided only with a stage, ventures had mere minutes to convince attendees, who served as the evening’s sharks, to invest in their respective companies.
Startups could participate in the event’s one-minute pitch competition, the full-length pitch competition or both. At the end of each round, attendees voted by texting a code corresponding to their venture of choice to live polling software, which generated a bar graph depicting the percentage of votes each startup received.
Five startups, all graduates of the BUzz Lab’s Summer Accelerator program, gave full-length pitches, outlining their business models, potential revenue streams, and ultimately what made them unique.
CompanyWide, a startup which describes itself as LinkedIn for construction workers, won the full-length pitch competition. They will receive $5,000 in funding from the BUzz lab to further develop their venture. Alexander Neary, the president of CompanyWide and a Questrom School of Business graduate student, described his experience pitching as emotional and exhilarating.
“I’m still coming down from it a little bit,” Neary said. “I’m just kind of wired up. It was just unbelievable. I’m really thankful for the opportunity.”
Neary said the funding provided by the BUzz lab will go toward compensating previously unpaid members of the CompanyWide team.
“This money is going directly to salaries for the programmers,” Neary said. “They’re working for credit right now, and this will go to pay their salaries.”
Five startups, all of which were affiliated with the BUzz Lab, gave one-minute pitches, focused on what inspired the creation of their companies and what niches they would be filling with their business.
EarlierCare, a startup digitizing the booking of dental appointments with an app, won the one-minute pitch round. They will go on to represent the BUzz Lab at HUBweek’s annual Beantown Throwdown, where startups from local colleges compete for funding.
Daniel Brownwood, head of marketing for EarlierCare, said the win was unexpected but amazing nonetheless.
“We were pretty nervous because we only actually started preparing last night, so we were one of that teams that were definitely underdogs in terms of how much we prepared,” Brownwood said. “But as soon as we saw the votes we were like, ‘Holy cow!’ That was amazing.”
Brownwood said EarlierCare’s team is looking forward to competing at HUBweek.
“We’re super excited,” Brownwood said. “That was our main goal, so we’re really happy that we achieved that.”
Attendees, who decided the fates of CompanyWide, EarlierCare and other startups, ranged from Questrom alumni to BU professors to friends of the entrepreneurs.
Redmond Siu, 26, of Allston, said he attended the event to hone his investing skills.
“I came out because it’s always my personal hobby to just look at young companies,” Siu said. “And eventually, down the road, I would like to run my own venture capital business. So, that’s why I wanted the exposure.”
Samantha Gignac, a Yawkey internship coordinator, said she was pulled in by the lure of live reality television.
Gignac said, “I got an email about all the alumni week events and I love ‘Shark Tank.’”
For the startups involved, the night was an opportunity to potentially realize dreams. Pallavi Shrivastava, a CompanyWide analyst and graduate student at BU’s Metropolitan College, shared her feelings before the competition began.
“It’s more of an emotionally stressful time because it’s a dream,” Shrivastava said. “You give your everything for that thing, and we really want this to work. And I’m a student at BU, so I manage my assignments plus startup and co-op.”
