OWEN HEMSATH
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

Last Tuesday, April 12, the College of Business Administration hosted the second annual Quick Pitch Competition where California State San Marcos students had two minutes to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges. The winners took home about $5,000 in prizes including mentoring and patent applications along with $400 in cash prizes. While two of the judges came from CSUSM, four others came from external sources in the entrepreneurial realm and included investors.

The competition featured 12 CSUSM students who each presented an original product or service idea ranging from iPhone accessories to custom picture frames and surfboard fin keys. The program also featured organic bug spray companies, social media music sites, fishing supplies and virtual secretaries. Each student had a chance to present in front of panel of judges who then assessed the presentation based on the two categories: content and presentation.  Following each presentation, the judges held up a number grade ranging from one to five with five being the best and each presenter remained on stage waiting for the feedback from the judges.

Jim Hamerly oversees the Entrepreneurship Society on campus and is the Director of Business Community Relations within the College of Business Administration. He also oversees the Quick Pitch competition and said, “There’s an art to delivering an effective quick pitch. It is much more difficult to condense a pitch into two minutes than five minutes. With five minutes, a speaker can ramble, but with just two minutes every sentence, every word needs to be purposeful and precisely calculated.”

While each presenter demonstrated incredible strengths, only three would place. Taking third, Shaun Briggs presented a virtual secretary-like idea called eMind, which reminds its user of important dates and events. Placing second was Jason Laret who presented J&J Jig Wraps — a fishing accessory guaranteed to keep any tackle box in order.  Finally, in first place, Corey Andrews presented a groundbreaking concept in social media called Jam Roulette. In this environment, musicians can link up with band mates to record, edit and produce new music in virtual time or create a new band from the website wanted pages.

While the contest does not guarantee instant success, according to Hamerly, the point of Quick Pitch is “to excite enough interest [for the judges] to want to follow up with the student” and it seems that Andrews’s project did just that. Hamerly also mentioned that the Quick Pitch is open to any CSUSM student and anyone with a savvy business idea is encouraged to participate next year.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Conway