In addition to homecoming week, the grand openings of several new buildings and the installation of Chancellor Jeremy Haefner, DU’s campus was abuzz from Oct. 4-8 with its first ever entrepreneurship week.
The Entrepreneurship@DU team partnered with Denver Startup Week—a week-long celebration of innovation featuring over 200 free presentations and workshops—to offer a variety of events both on campus and downtown. From supporting student entrepreneurs to hosting panelists to address some of the business world’s most pressing topics, entrepreneurship week proved successful and a beneficial experience for the community’s innovators.
The kickoff event on Oct. 4 was a launch party on Campus Green outside of Sturm, showcasing several booths where student entrepreneurs could spread the word about their businesses, drive sales and network with other students, faculty and even alumni.
Of course, no campus event would be complete without free food and merch, so the launch party offered a snack bar, take-home boxes of Crumbl cookies and Entreprneurship@DU socks.
Some of the featured student businesses in attendance included Vino Everywhere, selling a patent-pending wine straw for your next party, Skeezy Wax and Tune, getting your skis and snowboards ready to hit the slopes and Illegal Oats, breaking the rules through sustainable granola infused with ento-powder.
Other businesses included MyCogito, a wellbeing app that uses artificial intelligence to provide personalized mental health recommendations, and The Guide Network, a recreation company looking to be a one-stop-shop for booking all your outdoor adventures. Several of the student founders and CEOs of these companies are either majoring in the Daniels College of Business or pursuing the school’s entrepreneurship minor.
On Tuesday, a panel discussion called “Outdoor Recreation: Sustainability, Access and Opportunity,” was hosted at and live streamed from DU’s Community Commons. Panelists included Llyod Athearn, the executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, Michael Lowe, founder of Coventure, Robin Thurston, CEO of Outside Magazine and Michelle Zimmerman, former chair of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. Together, these panelists grappled with questions of conservation and how to maintain and protect our natural environment in Colorado’s booming outdoor recreation industry.
The next panel discussion, called “Profit: The Byproduct of Purpose,” took place on Wednesday at the Denver Pavilions, an entertainment center on 16th Street Mall. In a consumerist society that increasingly values businesses centering on the public good, the panel presented the important topic of the triple bottom line—the motivation for companies to focus on people, planet and profit, rather than solely making money. Panelists included two investors and three entrepreneurs who turned their passions into purposeful enterprises. All five speakers provided a robust conversation on the increasing need for intention in innovation.
On Thursday, an art exhibit in DU’s Community Commons preceded the final panel discussion, “The Business of Art: How Creatives Can Build Economic Value for Themselves.” The exhibit included art from DU’s theater department, virtual displays on the walls of the Commons, live music and a platform with a rotating video camera to capture all angles. After the exhibit, a panel of four local artists and creatives—including one of the founders of the arts production company Meow Wolf—discussed such topics as non-fungible tokens in the art space, leveraging different social media platforms and knowing the “why” behind one’s artistry.
The final event of entrepreneurship week, a student pitch competition, took place on Friday in the new Burwell Center for Career Achievement. Individual students and teams submitted over 50 entries of one minute-long video pitches for an emerging business idea at the end of September. Ten pitches were then selected to move on to Friday’s final round. The top ten participating groups had to deliver three to five minute presentations and their pitch decks to a panel of judges.
Clare Whetzel won the first place prize of $1,500 for her company Illegal Oats. A pitch for Pack Your Diet, a diet-inclusive backpacking food company, won the second place prize of $1,000, and Drink and Ride, a ride-sharing app to prevent DUIs, won $500 for third place.
Do you or a friend have the next great business idea? Have you always dreamed of being your own boss? Entrepreneurship@DU is a great place to start, as the program offers a myriad of resources from one-day “sprint” classes in the entrepreneurship minor, to speaker events, to microgrants and funding from the Pioneer Venture Group. Stay in the know by signing up for their newsletter or following Entrepreneurship@DU on Instagram.
