Well good evening everyone!
(upbeat pop music)
It's great to have everybody here.
I'm Murray Dalziel, I'm the Dean of the
Merrick School of Business, and this is
an event that we look forward to every year.
It's very important to us, and some people ask
why is it that we're running an entrepreneurship
competition, and there's two simple reasons,
entrepreneurship is in our blood, 'cause at
UB we were funded by entrepreneurs, and so
it's in our blood, and the second is that
we provide practical, career focused education
and there's no better way than learning about
business than actually trying to do it.
So that's why our student entrepreneurs are here.
I just, my job here really is to welcome everyone.
We've got many friends here from the
entrepreneurship community in Baltimore,
students, faculty, and also we're live streaming
this around the world at the moment, so we
welcome our friends from around the world.
I wanna introduce our president who's gonna kick
this off, President Kurt Schmoke, so thank you.
Great.
(applause)
Thank you very much, Dean Dalziel.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's a real pleasure to see you.
As Murray mentioned, the university of Baltimore
was founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.
It was actually back in 1925, it was a merger of
a night law school and a night business school,
and we've been focused particularly on education
for adult learners for so many years, and we're
very proud of the fact that we're among the
best in the nation in serving that population.
This particular event is the Leonard and
Phyllis Attman Competition, it's a great
competitive business prize, and certainly as
an initial matter, we would like to
greet Leonard and Phyllis Attman who are
here, thank you very much for being here.
(applause)
Not only are they the sponsors of this
competitive prize, but I know Leonard
in particular took time from his very
busy schedule to come out and meet with
the finalists in this program, told them
a little bit about his story, and I think
really inspired them, and they're gonna
compete tonight, and then one day they're
gonna try to compete against you, Leonard.
They'll compete against my kids.
Compete against your kids, okay, real good.
I would like to also note that this competition
has been very successful in moving our
students from being students to being
successful entrepreneurs, and take for
example Shelby Blondel, Shelby is over here,
Shelby was our winner last year.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
With the seed money that she won, Shelby was
able to transform her idea for a three in one
crab mallet/knife/bottle opener into
a business and it's called The Sheller.
In the past year, with the help from
her earnings here, she's gone into
production and sold about 1,000 Shellers,
providing enough revenue to invest back
into the company for expansion,
including adding a second model directed
at restaurants, so everybody go buy a Sheller.
(applause)
And whether you know it or not Shelby,
you're a part of a larger trend, according to
National Women's Business Council, there are
about 10 million women owned businesses
in the United States, an increase of more than
two million in companies in just over 10 years.
Women owned business are now generating more
than a trillion dollars in the US economy,
and that number is on the rise, and I can
tell you one of the reasons, we had in addition
to Murray Dalziel, our former Dean of the
business school, now our Provost,
Dr. Darlene Smith is over here really
encouraging women entrepreneurs, and we
thank her very much for the work that she's done.
In any event, I wanna thank you all,
we're gonna get on with the competition,
but at this point it's really my pleasure to
introduce a man who has been very involved
not only in business and entrepreneurship,
but in public policy helping so many
ways to encourage education throughout
this state, Mr. Leonard Attman.
(applause)
Thank you, Mr. President.
What a delightful pleasure it is
to be here again this year and share
this wonderful idea that my wife and
I put together several years ago.
My wife, among others, has had several
businesses that have been extremely successful
as a small business start from a
zero idea to very successful ideas,
and running and controlling and doing
all by herself, some with other partners,
some with our children, three fabulous
businesses in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
She's since retired, she says she's not
tired, but it was time for her to move on
and try to spend some time with our families
and travel a little bit with us all as well.
It can be done.
I've seen it from what it is that I
was able to get started with through
the help of my father, starting in
the deli and working down there, and going
all the way through when I was lucky
enough to marry my wife, and her father
was in the real estate development business
and I began to work there not knowing
anything about real estate, banking,
being a geologist, or anything else
that had to do with building the development.
So I started long ago way back then.
As a matter of fact, when we started
building apartments, there was a young
lady here who was just introduced before
that was working with us that I got
to know later when I came back to
University of Baltimore, and that's
the Dean Darlene Smith who is your Business
in here as well, so Darlene, thank you
very much for starting with us,
and it's great to see you being a fabulous
educator back here at University of Baltimore.
Henry Mortimer, thank you very much for
putting all this together with Murray Dalziel.
One other judge that was supposed to be here
with us tonight was out doing some things
that were very important in expanding our family.
She gave birth to a wonderful young son just this week.
As great grandparents, Phyllis and I are
happy to announce that to you, but she said
that she's probably watching the streaming
as well to see what was going on here tonight,
and making room for her son to
come here to University of Baltimore.
(laughter)
So at any rate.
(applause)
At any rate, I wanna thank all of the judges,
the coaches, and all of the people that
worked hard with the other 26 that
applied for participating here for tonight.
I was lucky enough to spend some time with
all of the presenters here today, and I
can tell you they are all energetic,
they all have wonderful ideas, and we
can do our best by encouraging
them for each one of their ideas.
Thank you for being here, thank you
for participating in our Prize, and thanks
to the University of Baltimore.
(applause)
Thank you, Mr. Attman.
Good evening everyone.
So tonight is gonna be an audience
participation encouraged kind of night,
so when we say good evening, or when
we bring our contestants out I'd
like to practice getting a round
of applause, so good evening everyone.
(applause)
All right.
Thank you, and welcome to the Sixth Annual
Leonard and Phyllis Attman Business Prize Competition.
I'm Henry Mortimer, I'm Director of the
Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Before we get going, I just want to take
a couple of minutes to first, before we
introduce our judges and competitors,
I wanna say a few words about the center,
which we are, as we call it, the front
door for entrepreneurship in Baltimore.
In 2016, the CEI celebrated 10 years of
encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship
and learning among UB students
and alumni and faculty and staff.
Our ongoing goal is to help students
and others launch and grow business ventures
while providing opportunities to educate,
engage, and collaborate with the
Baltimore business community, which is
really why we are here tonight.
The types of students that we attract
are first and foremost we have our
Entrepreneurship Fellows, they are
select students that come in, apply in
with a business idea, and then spend
two years in the classroom and in
the center as an incubator nurturing, and we
hope, launching a business when they graduate.
We also attract students who are
studying entrepreneurship, some of
whom are probably here tonight.
They may have their own businesses, are considering
entrepreneurship as a career, or perhaps
are taking classes here at the university.
And we also welcome alumni, looking for
at least five years back, they are
encouraged to come and partake in
our program's initial counseling,
physical space, and the ability
to set up a new business with us.
So our main goal is to provide emerging
entrepreneurs with access to the
Baltimore business community as I mentioned,
we have partnerships with numerous local
organizations and companies including
Startup Maryland, the ETC, Betamore, MICA,
Coppin, Morgan, and Towson Universities.
And then our Entrepreneurship-in-Residence taps into
the local expertise of volunteers in their fields.
We have folks from SCORE, the Baltimore
Small Business Resource Center, as well as
specialist professionals in legal accounting,
HR, marketing, et cetera, who come in and
spend many many hours volunteering their
time to work with our students.
So we also offer workshops and seminars
and several business pitch competitions
throughout the year, including tonight.
We do this again in the spring.
And all of this is available to all students and
everyone on campus at the University of Baltimore.
Available for free.
We are housed right next door, so that's
a list of some of the folks that we
work with, some of whom are here tonight.
Next door we have, in our physical space,
we have set up a collaborative incubator,
co-working space similar to what you might find at the ETC.
We also offer a 3D printer which is supported
by UB's Center for Digital Communication,
Commerce and Culture, and a digital recording studio
downstairs for commercial grade video production.
Our goal really is to serve as a bridge from
the classroom to help students gain real world
practical experience and to advance their careers.
I invite you to come by for a visit anytime.
Now on with the competition.
But I wanna take one quick moment to thank
the many volunteers whose tireless efforts
have made this evening possible, including the
first round judges and coaches and mentors
who are listed on the back of your program,
as well as the army of students who helped me
manage the center on a weekly basis on top
of all the other things they do including
working full time likely, taking a
full load of classes, et cetera.
Next I'd like to thank, and introduce,
our judges for tonight's competition.
So raise your hand when I call
your name, Wende Levitas, Executive Vice
President of Attman Properties.
Rebecca is at home, as we just found out,
with the newest Attman clan member,
Rebecca Stellar, Director of Marketing
Advertisement at A&G Management Company,
Johnathan Attman, Director of Acquisitions
and Development at Attman Holdings,
Harris Levitas, TPC Racing, and then
joining us on this side Laura Newman,
an entrepreneur and former Anne Arundel
County Executive, Angela Singleton
who runs the Pre-Seed Fund at TedCo,
and Deb Tillett, President and Executive
Director for the Emerging Technology Centers.
And our honorary judges, last but certainly
not least, Leonard Attman who's Chairman
of the Board Attman Properties,
and Phyllis Attman, President of the
Phyllis L. and Leonard J. Attman Foundation.
(applause)
Exactly.
The rules of the competition are simple.
Each of the six finalists will have
five minutes to pitch their businesses
to you all and to this panel of judges.
They'll be coming in the order
they're listed in the program.
The judges then have a combined
five minutes to ask questions,
so around 10 minutes per participant.
I'll keep time and let everyone know
when there's a minute remaining.
Then, as I mentioned before, audience
members, you do play a part here.
We encourage you to cheer on
the contestants like I mentioned.
We'll try that again, right?
(applause)
We do want you to cheer loudly because we're
out on the internet, the world wide web there.
I do ask if you refrain from clapping
or cheering during a presentation.
And then don't forget to vote for
your favorite contestant using the
ballot inside your program, that is
the third prize for this evening.
One more acknowledgement, speaking of prize money,
so I wanna make, before we begin, I'd like
to invite Jason Tagler to come up here
and deliver the first prize of the evening,
the Pitch Creator Hustle Award.
I'll let Jason describe what that is.
Thank you.
(applause)
Good evening.
This is a wonderful event, it's great
to be here, I'm really excited.
Thank you.
My name's Jason Tagler, my day job is
I'm a Growth Equity Investor at
Camden Partners, and my volunteer
passion project is Pitch Creator.
I found it in 2014 with the goal of
helping to create jobs in the Baltimore area
by teaching entrepreneurs how to communicate
with investors and lenders and
raise capital for their businesses.
And we were really thrilled to work
with Henry and the team here at UB's
Entrepreneurship Center this year to help
the six finalists prepare for this competition.
The way we did that is we have an online course
and we wrapped around that online course
some custom coaching, so Calvin Young
who works with me worked one on one
with all the finalists, and Calvin
couldn't be here today, so he's
sorry he couldn't join, but as we
all know, grit, persistence, and hustle
are really important parts of entrepreneurship.
We wanted to just, in our way, from the
Pitch Creator team side, recognize and
celebrate the entrepreneur finalist who
worked the hardest during the coaching
process and the preparation process
and made the most progress, so we
call that the Hustle 500 Award,
it's in the form of $500 in this jar.
And this is, unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum,
this is accepted at all Baltimore establishments,
and hopefully it will get used for
celebrating and potentially putting back
into the business, but we hope celebrating.
So without further ado, Calvin, who did
all the coaching, chose the finalist,
or the person who's gonna win this award,
and I don't even know who it is.
We're gonna open it up and find out.
And the winner of the Hustle 500 Award is Crystal Santiful.
(cheers and applause)
She's not here.
(laughter)
She's hustling.
She's out there, she's hustling, she's practicing.
(laughter)
Okay.
So Jason and Calvin spent hours and hours with
these folks really, and the basis for the award was...
The entrepreneur who worked the hardest
and made the most progress because we--
You had a grid right, you scaled it.
Yeah, we have learning objectives, and we
actually measured each, Calvin measured
each entrepreneur as they improved
against those learning objectives
through the coaching program, and we
thought it was important because some
of these students actually have businesses,
and others are starting from scratch with an idea.
So some of them have a little bit of an advantage
in that they've already got a business up and running.
Maybe not practical.
Okay, well we don't wanna hold
up the show, so we have it here.
We'll present it to her when she gets here.
And we can give it to her later.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jason.
(applause)
All right.
Here she comes.
Yeah!
(cheers and applause)
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Oh my god.
(laughter)
(applause)
All right, so without further ado, on with the show.
Is everybody ready, was that exciting, was that fun?
(applause)
We're giving out money tonight people!
And she earned it, she earned it.
Our first finalist is Brianna Billups
who will be presenting Fully Grown.
Brianna?
(applause)
Come on up, Brianna.
(applause)
Round of applause.
Thank you.
All right, you have five minutes.
Hi everybody, my name is Brianna
Billups and this is my story.
I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland
where I spent the majority of my
professional career cooking in various
restaurants and teaching essential
healthy eating lessons in city schools.
From the first time I saw Rachel Ray on
the Food Network channel, 11 year old
me knew I wanted to be a chef.
I even remember hosting my own cooking shows
with my childhood teddy bears in
the studio audience, true story.
When I was 19 I piloted the Sweetgreen Schools program
that educated students about healthy
eating and sustainability in Baltimore.
The idea for Fully Grown came about
during my first assignment in culinary school
which led me to discovering that I had
lived in a food desert my entire life.
As you may know, food deserts drive
disparities in health, education, and economics.
Learning these negative impacts
of food deserts challenged me to
find ways to improve my community.
My time here at UB has inspired me to
find a way that business can be a
part of the solution, which leads
me to my company's mission to grow
our communities the way we grow
our food, fully and sustainably.
Sorry guys.
I'm so sorry, it's gonna come.
For many busy individuals and families, they have
a hard time making healthy eating choices.
Myself included.
We often have a hard time finding
healthy food options locally, we lack
the knowledge of how to prepare fresh food
options, and simply lack the time to cook.
Fully Grown offers a three-pronged solution.
The first, we offer fully prepared meals
at an affordable price to fit the
customer's everyday needs while also giving
them the power to make healthier food choices.
The second, we offer seasonal fruit based
snacks made from 100% all natural ingredients,
and lastly, we increase awareness by donating
a percentage of our proceeds to our
non-profit arm, The Garden Project, which supports
urban area culture programs in city schools.
As you can see, Fully Grown offers
a complete solution to the problem.
Our revenue model is simple.
We make our money through the sales of
our products, wholesome meals and healthy snacks.
An average meal costs the customer $7, and our
fruit roll-ups are sold $1 per roll wholesale.
This year so far we have made $14,000 and we
anticipate that number growing to $50,000 by next year.
The size of our opportunity can be
broken down into three phases.
Phase one is focused on the local
Baltimore metropolitan area, phase two is focused
on the Mid-Atlantic region, and phase three
is focused on growing our company nationally.
Fully Grown currently has two subsets of existing customers.
Retail locations including Dovecote Cafe
and OK Natural, and the 27 recurring customers
who on average purchase four lunches
and two dinners on a weekly basis.
We are currently working to have our
products placed in Prime Corner Grocery store,
Eddy's Markets, local Whole Foods market stores
and nine other retail locations.
I'm all over the place, guys.
Our indirect competitors are prepared delivered meals,
Blue Apron, and other meal-kit delivery services,
and free snack brands such as Annie's, but in
reality our direct competitors are the
867 fast foot chains and corner stores
located in Baltimore city alone.
Our advantage over the competition is that
our meals are affordable, made from fresh ingredients,
delivered to the customers to enjoy by
simply reheating, our free snacks utilize
seasonal flavors, and we uniquely have
direct buy-in from our customers as we
are engaged in the same communities
as they live, work, and play.
Since our last round of funding we
have achieved the following milestones.
We have secured commercial kitchen space
at City Seeds, we have revamped our
meal pack packaging to feature
100% compostable packaging, we've partnered
with Door Dash Drive to facilitate
our delivery growth as we scale,
and lastly, I am the proud recipient of
the first Better Business Bureau Spark Award,
which acknowledges young companies for their
dedication towards culture, community, and character.
If selected as the winner of this competition,
we plan to use the funds in the following ways.
$3,000 to research an app to continue
to make mobile ordering easy for
our customers for meal prep, as well as
social media marketing campaigns to
grow our local brand awareness, and an
additional $3,000 to secure a co-packer for
our fruit snacks as well as shelf stable packaging.
Thank you for your time, I look forward to your support.
Any questions?
(applause)
Thank you Brianna, so as you can see this isn't
easy, and it's certainly not fun going first.
That was just because your last name is B, sorry.
It's okay.
How did she do everyone?
(cheers and applause)
Yeah, right?
This is not easy.
Thank you.
And you have lots of food samples for
the audience afterwards right to make
up for, yeah, to cover it all out.
Please visit my table, we'll have
great salad and fruit snacks.
Great.
Judges, do we have any questions for Brianna?
Anyone first?
Okay, we'll start here.
Where do you prepare the food?
At our commercial kitchen, City Seeds.
And where is that?
It is in the city, East Baltimore.
1412 Northwest Street.
And how large is it?
I'm not sure I can answer that question.
Is it sorta like a small warehouse?
No, so it's through the partnership
of School of Food, and they have a teaching
kitchen there where they do their cooking classes.
They started an entrepreneurship and
residence program, and we're the first there.
And how many people work for you?
It's just me and my co-founder today.
Okay, and how many meals can you get out a day?
A day?
So on average we make about 500 meals per month,
'cause we're only at the kitchen one day a week.
Thank you.
We had a question over here?
Hi Deb.
Hi, you covered a whole lot, and it was
terrific, I really appreciate it, the one
thing though, you mentioned social media,
but how do you find your customers?
What are you doing, really, in terms of marketing?
So if I wanted to find out about you, how would I?
So currently we haven't taken any
steps to do any traditional marketing,
all of our customers have came to
us through word of mouth, but we do
have an Instagram page currently where
we do promote Fully Grown meal prep.
Hi, terrific job.
I know it's hard to do this, you were very brave.
Thank you.
Very prepared.
Where I'm struggling is I'm having a
disconnect between the prepackaged
meal and the food desert concept.
I grew up in a food desert in East Baltimore
and we went to the corner store and
bought pre-packaged food, like Tasty Cakes,
and so that was a real desert, we bought produce
off of a horse drawn carriage called an arabber.
That to me was a food desert, and you're talking about
your competition being Blue Apron and Whole Foods.
So help me make the connection there.
Who is your target audience and
how are you directly serving them?
Okay.
So I would say that our direct
competitors are those corner stores who
only feature processed foods and Tasty Cakes.
But in people's mind the first thing they think
of is Blue Apron when I mention a packaged meal.
So as far as the food desert goes, our competitors
are the corner stores and we wanna be able to
bring a healthy meal that's already prepared
that takes the thought out of what's
for dinner and allows customers to make
a healthier choice without having to
think about it, does that answer your question?
Yeah, so let me just take it a little bit further.
So your price point is $7 for a meal, which could
be pretty expensive if you have four
or five people in a family, that would
be fairly expensive per person, is it
$7 per person, and secondly, are you able
to get it to those locations, are you
servicing the corner stores, are you able to
deliver to those locations to serve the audience?
So we do have delivery.
So we deliver straight to your door right now.
Hi Brianna, that was a great presentation,
and the foodie in me has the question
how far does Door Dash deliver?
Currently we have a 10 mile
radius from our commercial kitchen.
Okay, and consistent with the question
you just had, I just wanna make sure
I understand too that your target market
overlaps with your existing customer base,
are you finding that, that at $7 a meal
you're able to service the desired
customer base, or is your customer
base a little broader than you thought?
I would say our customer base is pretty broad.
Okay, so now I think I'm finally
understanding your question.
So food deserts don't only exist in the city.
As well as people who have previously lived
in a food desert, so do you currently
still live in a food desert today?
Fortunately no.
No, right, so we have people who have
previously lived in food deserts, they move away,
but they take those same habits with them.
So to answer your question as well, our base
is broader, so I think the furthest
customer we have is probably Hartford County.
And while he still has the habits of living
in a food desert, not being able to make
healthy choices, Fully Grown Meal Prep
supplies him with that, but we also do
have people who still live in the city
and in food deserts, 'cause if you think
about it they're spending the money anyway.
So you're still going to the corner store
and probably spending 10 times
the money you would spend on a
healthier meal on processed foods.
I hope that answers your question, thank you.
Anymore questions for Brianna?
Judges?
All right.
All good.
Great, thank you Brianna.
(cheers and applause)
All right, so next up we have Willow Hendershot.
Who will be pitching Prevail.
(applause)
All right, so how many of you play or
at least know someone that plays video games?
How many of you have or know
someone that has a mental illness?
Those questions might seem like miles apart,
but I'm willing to bet some of you thought of
the same person when you answered those questions.
I know that because I'm one of those people.
My name is Willow Hendershot and I've
been living with depression and an
anxiety disorder for many years now.
Growing up, I was afraid of meeting
new people and going outside, so instead
I stayed inside and played games.
Through going on adventures and fighting
evil from the safety of my couch, it made
me a little less afraid of the outside world.
But I'm not the only one dealing
with those sort of problems.
According to NAMI, one in five people in
America suffer from some sort of mental illness.
It costs the US economy about $193 billion
each year in lost earnings due to
mental illness conditions in the workplace,
and suicide is the second leading
cause of death in ages 10 to 34.
On top of that, last year nearly 60% of
those people with mental illnesses
did not seek any sort of treatment.
This is usually due to cost or general inaccessibility.
And I wanna do something about that.
So I started working on a computer game called Prevail.
It's a 2D platformer, like Mario if
you're not as familiar, where you play someone
dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
and as you solve puzzles and make choices
in the game, it reflects how the character
is dealing with their PTSD and how they prevail.
This is a way for people to see the real
symptoms of this illness and hopefully resonate
with people that are going through it currently.
And there's a lot of people that this can reach.
Worldwide, over two billion people play video games.
Of those, about 60% play on computers.
If we divide that by five, with the one
in five from earlier, it gives you
a target market of about 200 million
people that I can potentially reach.
By the first year of release I'm hoping
to get at least 500 to a thousand copies.
This is mostly gonna be done through Steam,
it's the world's largest online
gaming distribution platform.
In the future I'd like to also expand that
into PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo platforms.
And I'd also like to reach out to
Crisis Intervention Centers and inpatient
therapy facilities to see if those
patients could benefit from playing the game.
And it's all just to reach that
target market of ages 15 to 34 who either have a
mental illness, or who don't but want to learn more.
Obviously I would like to sell on my own
website too, but in selling through Steam,
even though I will only get 70% of the profits,
it'll still also be making almost
double what I would normally make
if I just published it on my own.
My main competition is gonna be other
independent games, they cover a very
wide range of topics, but most only
cover mental illness from a personal standpoint
rather than with the inclusive
educational aspect I'm trying to.
There's also AAA games which are your
high end, very massive production,
but those typically don't talk about
these sorts of sensitive issues
because it's just too much of a risk
with their multi-million dollar budgets.
There have also been some psychologists and
psychiatrists that have commissioned games
from small development teams, but these
are also usually expensive and they only reach
a very small target of that doctor's patients.
Prevail is something different.
It's meant to give a sense of solidarity to
those people that are dealing with this problem
that might not have any other support system.
So besides having lived through this,
I have a degree in Game Design.
I started working on Prevail in 2015
while I was getting my degree.
When I was working on it in class it was
voted the best indie game within my grade.
When I came to U Balt, I also applied for
both the Wilson Presidential Scholarship
and the Entrepreneurship Fellow program.
In both applications I included my work
on Prevail, and it was the primary reason
that I was awarded both of these scholarships.
So I'd like to have a demo released by
late next year after I've gotten my own website up.
After that, I'm going to need to start
building another team, especially a
programmer in order to start working
on the full release of the game.
With this round of funding, most of it
would be going towards a new computer
so that I have the hardware and
software needed to work on this demo.
Any extra money is going to be going
towards more research and other software
and external tools for developing that demo.
So hopefully I can start figuring out
how people will prevail in 2019.
Thank you.
(applause)
That's fine, you can hold onto that.
Great job, Willow.
Does anybody, any of the judges
have any questions for Willow?
This is not a question, but look
into a company called Brinkbit.
Do you know them?
I have actually spoken with Evan Fuller.
He mentioned that he was gonna connect
me with the rest of the studio.
I can do that for you, Evan's moved
on to Mosaic which is also games
and learning, but yeah, Brian Bamford
is Brinkbit and you design, publish,
and sell right on their own platform.
Great.
Thank you.
So is the goal, really terrific job
by the way, and kudos to you for
tackling such an important subject.
Is the goal to bring awareness, or to help those
with mental illnesses better deal with it?
So it's meant to do both, the primary audience
is going to be people that are currently
suffering from mental illness, but it's
also anybody can play this game.
If it can also educate people who aren't as familiar
with these symptoms, then that's all the better.
Thank you.
So Willow, what a great vision
you have, and I know you will prevail.
Great name, yes.
What analytics are you going to apply to know the
effectiveness of your tool in solving the problem?
So the game has multiple endings in it,
the different choices that you make throughout
the game determine which of the multiple
endings you will get, and I'm going to
have analytics that figure out how many
people reach what endings to get a
better sense of the general player base.
And how they, the different ways that
they look at the problems throughout the game.
Other questions from the judges?
One more?
I'm not coming up with the questions,
but I have one more suggestion.
University of Maryland System's
MIPS Partnerships, that'd be a great
opportunity for you to potentially
get the research done by one of the University
of Maryland System's schools and pay for it.
That's awesome, thank you. MIPS.
There was one question over here.
Any questions on this side?
So how will you market the game?
How will people know what it is, and most
people with mental illness don't
really realize they have it as well.
Most of the marketing will probably be done through Steam.
They do a lot to bolster the different indie
communities and the small, even individual developers.
I'll also be trying to market it through
my own website, and also there are several
people on YouTube that play video games
on there that have already expressed
interest in playing the game for their channel.
That it?
No more questions judges?
Great, all right.
Thank you.
(applause)
I don't know about you all, but we're only
two people into this and I'm already having
a hard time figuring out who's my favorite.
So next up, we have Kareema McLendon who will
be presenting Kareema McLendon Bridal Fashions.
Let's give a round of applause for Kareema and
her prop, which I can see coming out right now.
(applause)
Do we sing Here Comes The Bride?
(laughter)
Wow.
Kareema McLendon everyone.
(applause)
Hi everyone, how are you?
I'm fine.
I actually wanna tell you a story
about the time that I got married.
I was so excited, I'm gonna be a bride,
I was 31 years old at the time, and I
decided you know, I know I'd worked in
the industry as a gown designer, but I'm
planning a wedding long distance,
I can't be bothered with this.
So I went gown shopping.
And it was a disaster.
Every style was the corset style,
and I'm thinking my 90 year old
grandmother-in-law to be is gonna
be sitting right there, I cannot have
cleavage up to here, and my back out,
and so this became a problem because
every store that I went to only seemed
to have these styles for younger brides.
That happened in 2005, it's still happening now.
The problem is that there seems to be
not enough gowns for brides that
are between the ages of 30 and 55 years old.
So that problem becomes that brides like me
either have to go shop from place to place
and settle on a gown that's inappropriate,
settle on a gown that's the cost of a small car,
or have your gown made like I did.
Now luckily I knew how to source, and I
knew how to go and get the best prices,
and I knew who I could trust to make
my gown, but not every bride can do that.
So that's where my company comes in.
Kareema McLendon Bridal aims to solve
the problem that stores have of having
this spot where brides cannot find
a gown that's suitable for them.
And what we can do is supply stores with this gown.
We use designs that are sophisticated, but not dowdy.
We'll use silks, French lace, and we can
supply these gowns in a price point
between $2,500 and $6,500 retail.
So our pricing model, our revenue model, is twofold.
One, revenue comes from the actual
stores buying the samples, the gowns
that you see normally hanging
in a bridal shop when you go in.
And on top of that, and we figured we can sell
three per season or six per year per store.
On top of that, when the stores generate more
sales through those samples, that's more revenue for us.
So total, we figured that we can generate
per store $101,500, and when you take away
our expenses for manufacturing the gowns,
marketing, so on and so forth,
then we can net $49,300 per store.
Now what's important about this is that
in the United States, bridal company
is a three billion dollar industry.
Even with us getting 1% of the industry of the
market, we could create 15 jobs for stitchers.
These are jobs that are here in Baltimore,
because the gowns would be manufactured in Baltimore,
and that we can also have these as skilled,
full time jobs with a livable wage.
So our plan is to roll out, between now
and February of 2019, working on
our first collection of gowns.
April 2019 is considered the national
open-to-buy for stores, but we would only target
the Mid-Atlantic region and call it a soft rollout.
In October 2019, that's when we plan on
rolling out the stores, rolling out to stores
nationally and selling our gowns nationally.
Now I have some competition of course,
but what I do better than my competition
is that I can deliver gowns because
they're made here in Baltimore within
eight weeks as opposed to my next
competitor Amsale who has to spend
12 weeks or more manufacturing a gown,
or even Berta who, her gowns are coming
literally from a slow boat coming from China.
It's six months.
What I plan to do with the funds, should I
win this competition, is use $1,000 to
help finish this first collection.
Another $1,000 for a used dress form
much like the one that you see here,
she's a plus-size dress form, so that
I can actually offer gowns in larger sizes
so that I can fit all brides, and then
$1,000 would go towards working capital
to hire stitchers to help with
this collection and going forward.
So my experience, I have over 20 years
experience in the bridal and fashion industry.
I've worked notably for Arnold Scaasi Bride
and for Eva Forsyth, Cynthia C. and Company,
and I also consulted with a company called
Nicki Versace Lingerie that was based in the United Kingdom.
That's everything.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
Thank you, Kareema.
Do you make the gowns?
Yes.
And you have a group of people that help you make them?
Right now I do not, I am searching
for stitchers, and so I'm actually
gonna be working out of Open Works
with the hopes of collaborating with
other stitchers so that we can get
the process of sewing faster because
I sew pretty fast, but it's just me
right now, and so that's part of
what I'm looking for is other people.
Now are you gonna put them into stores?
Into stores, yes.
And the stores will let you put them in there?
I'm selling to them wholesale, yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Oh, I can pass it.
That was great, great idea.
Thank you.
I've had to make that choice a couple times.
(laughter)
Anyway.
You know, just a couple times.
I get it, I hear you.
My question is, and I don't think you
went over it, you said it would be
in stores, but I thought there was
a lot of rental stuff going on in
bridal gowns, is there, am I that old?
No, so there's no rental in bridal gowns,
the problem is because we have so many curves
that when you fit a gown to say me, that's it.
You'd have to find someone else who's
five feet tall and built like this.
I gotcha, okay.
It was something I didn't see, and obviously
I don't have the domain expertise.
Anyway.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that, that was
wonderful, I really enjoyed it.
I particularly enjoyed mature aesthetic because
that was my category when I was shopping for a gown.
I didn't really define it that
way at the time, but I like it.
This is my question, have you sketched out
your first collection, and for those of us
who are a mature aesthetic, there are
certain things that we're always looking for
that are difficult to find in a gown.
The arms, the waist, we want something
that's comfortable, but at the
same time feminine and flattering,
so I'd be curious to know if you've
already given some thought to
what the first collection will look like.
Yes, absolutely, so this neckline that you
see on this dress, this is the most
flattering neckline for all women,
it doesn't matter what your weight is,
I was heavier when I was married,
that was the neckline that I wore,
because it was indeed the most flattering,
and then also like a vast waist where
it does this so it makes you look taller.
And slim in the front because when I
designed initially for myself, it was poof.
Then when I tried on the first sample,
it was horrific, so I had to build in,
slim in the front, and then have
more of the drama in the back, and so
that's what I, for women who are built
like me, you can still have it slim in
the front and then all the drama in the
back and it'd still be quite flattering, yes.
Anyone else?
Any other questions?
Sure.
Oh, yes.
So I'm wondering, you mentioned that
the markets your targeting are women
between the ages of 30 and 55?
Yes.
Do you know the actual size of
that market, and is it growing?
That market is growing.
Part of the problem with the industry
is that when brides were first getting married,
and in our mind's eye of what we think of a
bride, was from 1960 when she was 20 years old.
The average age of a bride getting married
for the first time now is 31 years old.
But the industry still designs for that
prototypical 20 something year old bride.
And in addition to that, 40% of that market
is people who are getting married either for
the second time, one partner or both partners.
So this is a growing market, yes.
So it's huge, it's not a niche play here?
No, yes.
Interesting.
Yes.
Great.
Thank you.
Great, any other questions for Kareema?
All right.
Thank you.
(applause)
All right.
Do we have a name for your bridal gown model here?
I do not.
Sexy.
Sexy.
(laughter)
Great, thank you all, as you can see
already tonight we've got a wide range
of business types here that we're
producing at UB, and the whole goal,
as I mentioned before, is connecting
with the community, we've had great
comments about who to go to next,
so this has been very helpful.
So next up, I'd like to welcome our
award winning hustler for the evening,
Crystal Santiful, who will be
presenting Crystal Tutu Paradise.
Crystal.
(applause)
Hello hello hello everyone!
How y'all doing?
I love the response, thank you
so much, that'll make me feel better.
Hey family that's pointing to me.
All right, so let's get down to the nitty gritty.
All right, Crystal Tutu Paradise is a
business that started solely because I wanted
to give my niece Crystal a custom
outfit for her birthday party.
So the birthday party, we planned it in August,
we're like we wanna give her this big shebang.
It was Trolls.
She loves Poppy, she loves Branch, I had her
sitting there and telling me all the
names of the people and she's like
yes I love them, I love them, so I said okay,
how can I make this into a custom outfit?
Had no idea how to do tutus, no idea
how to do t-shirts, though you can see
my skill has improved, thank you very much.
(light applause)
Yes, thank you for the hand clap.
So with this, I went to the store,
got some ribbon, got some tulle
which is this material right here,
and hand-tied it onto the ribbon.
I had no Velcro, nothing to hold it
together, and thus came this outfit.
So she loved it, she was running around the party,
and she was like look at Poppy, look at my tutu!
My mother couldn't stand it because the
tulle had a lot of glitter, so the glitter
was all over the house by the end of the party.
She forgave me for it, it was fine.
But my niece loved it so much, and just
seeing her reaction made me see that
I wanna do this for other people.
Had no idea how I wanted to grow it,
but I wanted to do it for more people.
So Serena Williams, she is breaking
all barriers with a tutu, so you can't tell me
that tutus are not happening in today's society.
If Serena Williams can go to a tournament
and kill it with a tutu, why can't you?
You hear that?
Come on, y'all better clap for that, that was a good one.
(applause)
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much.
So the problem that Tutu Paradise is
focusing on is people want to feel
and look good for their birthday parties,
graduation, all these different events.
What is an event that is important to you
throughout the year, what's that one day
of the year you wanna look dope from head to toe?
Birthday.
That was it, y'all just care about...
Christmas, I was about to say, come on,
Thanksgiving, 'cause we sit in a house
with outfits on that looks cute.
We all do it.
And so what Tutu Paradise does
is we want to be a one stop shop.
We are here to cater to your need regardless of the event.
We've had people come and order
tutu from us for Easter Sunday.
She went to church in a full length tutu like
I am the baddest thing in this church, praise the Lord,
and so we were able to cater to that.
She knew she wanted to look good on
Easter Sunday, but she just didn't know what it was.
So that's when we came in and we gave her
that one stop shop for her and her daughter.
This is one of my first long distance
clients that I did in Kentucky when I first
learned how to do a long tutu and they loved it.
It was amazing, I was glad they liked it.
So with our financials, it's clear that
there's a market that we can tap into.
There is people out there that
are interested in buying tutus.
At our price point, our base price point
is $35 for a child tutu, so an
average child size like right here.
You wanna stand up for me Victoria?
That's my little cousin, y'all.
So an average child her size, their tutus
start at 35, and adults tutus start at 50.
So with these numbers here, it just shows us that
there are people out there that wanna buy tutus.
And it can be for any big or small event.
And our TAM, our low represents what I
could do right now for a whole year.
I can do, tutus take up to two hours each,
and that's what I can knock out in a year.
But the high represents just the Baltimore numbers,
so what I did was I went and I looked up the
numbers for the women that are in Baltimore
that have children under the ages of five
that have birthday parties, and with that,
that's when I got the 19,000 and I
went on down and did all the math, so hopefully
it pleases your wonderful eyes all right?
Okay.
Oh, and one more, our audience that we're
focusing on right now are mothers ranging
from the ages of 25 to 40 that wanna get
something for their daughters, their nieces,
and even nephews, I also cater to boys as well.
As you can see, that's an outfit that
I did for my nephew's fourth birthday party.
So we do boys, we do girls, we do men, we do everybody.
We try to make sure we accompany everybody,
but the main point tonight is the little girl tutus.
Our secret sauce is that we care.
We genuine care that you wanna look good.
I will sit on the phone with my clients
all day and all night if I have to
to make sure that they feel confident
in their outfits because if you
feel good, you act good, your whole
attitude changes when you feel and look good.
So that's what our customers appreciate the most.
We also offer flexible payment plans, and we
also have express ordering as well.
I have one client, she text me on
Thursday night and said I need a tutu Friday.
Made it happen.
That's something that a lot of
our competitors aren't able to do.
So with me being, even in Baltimore,
I even let them know from the beginning
like hey, this is gonna cost you extra
for the shipping and for the process
and everything and they still
are willing to pay that money.
So that's something that lets me know
that customers are willing to pay
that money to look and feel good.
And so with your investment, Crystal Tutu Paradise
is a home based business, so right now we
use home based products to do our tutus.
So there are times when I'm doing a custom shoe
and I may have a big iron in my hand holding
a shoe, and that can be hazardous, I could burn
my finger one day, something like that,
we don't wanna end up in the hospital.
So what's happening is this investment is
gonna help us get the proper equipment we need
to ensure safety reasons, and also to help us
with our social media, stock inventory,
one of the things I've learned since we've been
open in this last year is that whenever I got
an order, I had to go to pick up the supplies.
But if we have stock inventory that can cut down
on our cost that we have to do
every time we get a new order.
So that's one of the things that
this investment will help us do.
Also, the CTP Ambassador Program is something
that I'm planning to implement in 2019.
This program will help us bring on
individuals to help the load, so it's not gonna
just be me hopefully in the next six months.
We're gonna bring on a young fashion designer,
aka my sister, she's going to Baltimore City
Community College and she wants to do
Fashion Design, so why not bring her on to
give her the skills that she may need to
further herself in the fashion business?
And I also have another individual who's
gonna come and help me on the administrative side.
To help me keep up with the orders, to make
sure I'm staying up to date with those,
because a one man show is just not gonna
end good, so why not take the time to
invest in having other people come on
the team and help me reach my goal.
So Crystal Tutu Paradise is here for you.
Talk to the Tutu lady and let us spice
up your life for any occasion you may need.
Thank you.
(cheers and applause)
Well done, Crystal.
Judges, we have any questions?
What color is yours gonna be Deb?
Yeah, what color, I got you.
(laughter)
So I think you addressed it a little bit
at the end, but this is all about you
and it's your personality and your passion
in making this happen, how is it scalable?
How do you get to grow?
So right now, so we're in the process
of building our plan because that is something
we do, we want to grow, so that's where
the ambassadors come in, that's when
we wanna build our social media presence
because right now we're going against
people that have been on social media
for a while, so they have over 2,000 people
following their page, and so right now we're
trying to build a clientele that will get us
that wide range of clients, 'cause right now
we're only focusing on that little bit, and so
we're trying to expand our client base and I think
that's one of the ways we're trying
to improve with making it grow.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, and one thing that was concerning
to me is that you definitely talked about
how long and how much time you spend with a customer.
That's very you, that's your personality,
it's ingrained in you, how do you begin
to find other people that will be that
as well and then help you grow your business?
So the CTP Ambassador Program, I just
really got it to the nitty gritty, but I've
actually been using one of my close friends,
I've known her for about five years,
she's really been helping me with the
administrative side, talking to my
clients for me, and she's able to give
them that personality that I have where
people still feel like it's still
getting done, even though they're not
talking to Crystal, they may be talking
to my helper and she's still able to get
what they need at the end of the day, yup.
(mumbles).
Yes, pretty much, so yeah.
First of all, let me just say
you have an extraordinary career
in front of you, I don't think there's
any question about that and that definitely
deserves applause because you're a rock star.
(applause)
Thank you so much.
You're a rock star and you're gonna do
amazing things, I'm looking forward to following.
My question is very similar to Deb's though,
I mean look, I'm a big fan of tulle.
I once put hundreds and hundreds of yards
of tulle in a dining room to turn it
into a little castle for my daughter.
Oh wow.
And I mean hundreds of yards of pink tulle.
Yes.
Will never do that again.
(laughter)
So I love it, and I love the concept,
and it's really fun, but how do you compete
with people who are manufacturing in
China and selling them on Amazon?
That is a really good question, and that
is something that I myself am still
figuring out, because with me being small
and a one person show right now in Baltimore,
though I am reaching people that are
in Kentucky and West Virginia and
different things like that, people still
will probably go to Target and
buy the $12 tutu, but the thing that I'm
pushing to people is that we are one of a kind.
So you're not gonna go to Target and buy
this tutu and not see 20 other
people in the exact same thing.
Everything we do is made to order.
On my table I only have one outfit
because there's no way for me to keep
everything that I've made because
they're getting shipped off.
So everything is one of a kind, we strive
in making sure that people understand
that you're not paying, you're not paying
to look like Sister Sister in 2018,
you're not paying to have a twin,
you're paying to look like your
individual personality, and that's the
biggest thing we've been pushing for people.
Good answer.
Thank you!
Love it, I love y'all, man.
(laughter)
Yes.
Likewise Crystal, I think you answered
those questions beautifully, I think you
said your secret sauce is heart, and I do
think that heart is contagious and
that you will pass that onto your
team and that will be your asset.
Thank you.
My question is how do you, at $200, market this
and get the type of reach that you
need to help this really grow?
So what we've been doing so far with
our market reach on social media is
we've been using the prime outfits that
we see catch a lot of people's attention.
I know with the long tutus a lot of adults
like those, but also with the really cute
outfits that say the little girl's name
and the little character, we use funds
to push those posts on Facebook and Instagram,
we don't do all the other posts that we post.
We strategically pick the outfits that one,
well I feel confident about all my outfits,
but some of them we just step back
and be like I did that, so the ones
that I feel it's something that's different
and new, I push those out there, and a lot
of people, and what we're trying to do is
we're trying to turn those likes into clients.
So what I'm doing now when people comment
and say oh I love that, or they tag someone's name,
I'll send that person a message, so we
go the extra step in making sure if you
like our post, if you like our Facebook,
we're talking to you to see how can we
help you regardless of the event,
the situation, the age, no matter.
We take that extra step to get in contact
with people that potentially could be clients.
Any further questions?
Oh yes.
Where do you get your fabrics?
So right now our fabrics are coming from, oh.
Can't hear you, what?
Oh her question was where do I get
my fabrics, so right now my fabric
is come from Jo-Ann's, but hopefully with the
stock inventory we're looking to buy them in bulk.
Right now Jo-Ann's is our main source of
the tulle and we use Jiffy Shirts
to get our t-shirts, but I am in the process
of looking for a wholesale tulle seller
so we don't have to pay as much for
the tulle as we would pay at Jo-Ann's.
Yeah.
You do that for the t-shirts too.
Right, yeah, so we're, so right now what
we have is keeping us afloat, but we're
also looking to decrease the money
that we spend in buying the supplies.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you judges, thank you Crystal.
(cheers and applause)
I said it before, but I'll say it again.
What about these contestants everyone?
Right?
(applause)
I'm excited.
We have two more.
Our second to last coming up next is Mikita
Thompson who will be presenting The Party Room.
Round of applause for Mikita.
(applause)
The Party Room is a one stop shop
party planning service for anyone that's
planning a special occasion such as a
Bar Mitzvah, theme party, recital, small concert.
Hello everyone, my name is Mikita Thompson
and I am the CEO/Founder of The Party Room.
I have been working in the entertainment
industry over the past eight years
creating custom props and costumes for
individuals, and briefly as a venue provider.
And I am here tonight to tell you about the
absolute best party planning service money can buy.
That is deliverable to your home,
or any venue of your choosing.
Has anyone here ever taken on the task of planning a party?
(laughter)
More than likely you can recognize
this situation on my right.
Standing in long retail lines just
to pay high price for party supplies,
or for my tach savvy bunch, searching through
hundreds of vendors on bargain websites
such as Ebay or Amazon just to end up
disappointed when expectations fall short.
In our mind we all want that wow
effect when we're planning a party,
but some way or another we end
up with a situation like this.
(laughter)
Yeah, pretty lame, that's your party.
(laughter)
And the reason why is because awesome
party props and decorations are expensive.
However, The Party Room is your number one solution.
All you have to do is make the call.
Our team of experts will show up to
your doorstep ready to deliver you
ease of stress by saving you time and money,
and of course designing your party better than you.
There are alternatives that offer some,
but not all, of the options that
The Party Room has to offer.
Our research indicates that The Party Room
is simply the smarter way to plan.
Saving you way more time and money
while offering you way more accommodations.
Here's how.
The Party Room basic package accommodates 75 guests.
For only $700 you get invitations, buffet,
decorations, theme props, music, speakers,
photobooth, party lights, fog,
set-up and breakdown with every booking.
We also offer subscription options for
the for-profit industry professionals.
We've calculated savings from 700 to $1,100 per year.
So if you're an entertainment manager, or a
party promoter who seeks to make a profit
from your events, these packages are the way to go.
Our total addressable market range is
estimated to calculate future revenue
based off of recent experience to identify popular
party planning days that customers such as...
Sorry about that, sorry everyone.
That costume and prop customers utilize that typically
plan events two to six events per year,
entertainment managers and promoters
who typically plan six to 12 events per year,
and a slew of drop in customers that I've
interacted with as a result of my 2016 Craig's List
and social media posts that reached out to me.
Year one, our projected revenue is expected
to reach $179,200 with a gross margin of 57%.
Through investing, we plan to increase our
inventory and hire more Party Room setup techs.
Year two, we plan to double our profits to $358,400.
The way we plan to utilize the funds from
this Attman pitch competition, $200 will be
spent on 10 heated buffet trays, $260 for
four LED bar counters, a total of
$1,356 will go towards four special
lighting units, two fog machines, two portable
speakers, and two professional speaker devices.
$1,000 will cover two-thirds of the
cost of the deposit for the photobooth,
and $184 remaining will go towards the
first two deliveries for the Zipcar service.
As you can see, the potential for this
investment round will enable The Party Room
to be cash flow positive by 2019.
And that will bump us into the cash flow range.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak
with everyone here tonight, and remember to
contact The Party Room for your next event if you
want an event you and your guests will never forget.
(applause)
Way to go, Mikita.
Judges, do we have questions for The Party Room deliver?
Anyone?
Phyllis.
How many different types of parties can you do?
Because each one costs a lot of money
when you do the different decorations.
Okay, the way we plan to tackle that problem
is I have real estate, so it's like I plan
to use that as storage for the themes,
and what you're getting is a rentable service,
so it's like you're not actually purchasing
the props as they are, you're just--
I'm renting them.
You're renting them for a base price,
so it don't matter what your theme is,
whether it's a decades party, silhouette party,
masquerade party, you're gonna pay the exact same price.
And then the food will be
different or the same at every party?
What we do is we actually provide resources
for vendors such as caterers and stuff like that,
but the buffet setup does not actually
include the food, but we will find you
a caterer, so that's the whole point of
when you contact us, you don't have to
search for anything, we'll put you in
contact with caterers that fit your budget,
we'll put you in contact with, if you need
liquor distribution or stuff like that, but we
mainly create the look of your party, the theme.
Okay.
Other questions?
Judges?
So the $700, how do you determine
what size event that's for?
Is it up to...
75, it accommodates up to 75 guests.
And then the price scales from there?
And then the price goes from there?
Correct.
Like if the event gets larger because
that means that more than likely, it really
all depends on what you need because if you're
in an empty venue and you need tables
and chairs and setup, that could be
an additional cost, if you need custom
costumes that could be an additional cost,
but the basic package pretty much covers
your theme, which is the setup,
your decorations, your buffet style,
your bar stall for your liquor, but does not
include the liquor, your photobooth that you--
Well you had me when you had the liquor in there.
(laughter)
My real question is about how do you
scale it and how did you come
up with that base package price?
The way I came up with it is because
I used to have a party room venue, and for
that venue I charged only $500 basically for
the same thing that you're getting here,
but everything that's pretty much here
was already there in a club, so people
only paid $500, I took care of everything
for them, and they were like this is
a really great idea, and it took off.
So my question is your actual
customer, is this a B to B play?
You're selling business to business, you want
to provide your services to people who are
in the event space, or are you selling to
me the consumer because I have my
husband's birthday coming up and I've got
35 people coming and I don't wanna fool
around with it, so which is it?
I'm B to C and I'm B to B, like for you,
if you want your event at your home,
we will come into your home, design your home
to fit whatever type of theme party you like.
I'm throwing B to B for entertainment
managers and party promoters, and then
even when it comes to B to C, if you don't
necessarily want it in your house, but you
want an intimate setting, I'm actually planning
to incorporate it with an Airbnb, so if you
wanna rent a spot through Airbnb,
we come there and we set it up.
That's more like B to C.
All right.
Thank you, Mikita.
Thank you judges.
(applause)
All right.
We're coming down to it.
So finally, last but not least,
I'd like to welcome out Brittany Whitby and her
teammate Demi who will be presenting Charmony Naturals.
Give a round of applause.
(applause)
I'm Brittany Whitby, and this is Demi Abromaitis.
And we are Charmony Naturals.
We've combined a mix of experiences
into business, sales, and chemistry
to create a hemp based CBD cosmetics line
of bath, body, and beauty products that
combines the dynamic mix of hemp based
CBD and carefully selected natural botanicals.
To give people the benefits of
hemp-derived CBD which has a dynamic
number of health benefits, and carefully
chosen botanicals to maximize the effectiveness
of the product with purpose driven
formulas and to maximize your enjoyment.
So many of you may be aware that CBD
is one of the hottest, most controversial
trends of the wellness warrior in 2018.
What is CBD?
CBD is derived from a hemp plant.
It is non-psychoactive, and it is legal
to produce in Maryland for consumer goods.
CBD, derived from the hemp plant,
contains the high CBD levels,
but low THC levels, so in layman's
terms, it doesn't get you high.
(laughter)
Very straightforward.
So why topical CBD?
Topical CBD has anti-inflammatory
properties and natural analgesic properties.
Basically it helps with muscle recovery,
joint inflammations, strains, it also
promotes cell regeneration in cases
like psoriasis, and last but not least,
it feels good and you deserve it.
(laughter)
So what sets us apart from the competition?
We have some of our bigger producers here
on the left, but the problem with them
is they're big and they're cumbersome,
so they don't have the ability to
quickly shift gears or offer limited
edition products, but their span is very diverse.
However, they're very dispensary focused.
Then you have some of our competitive
producers here in the middle.
They have a very limited product line,
and you can really only find them at
cannabis-driven events, or online like on Instagram.
We at Charmony Naturals, we strive to be both.
So with our small batch sizes, and our
current manufacturing facility, we have
the ability to have variety.
Seasonal products, we have a sales force
to go out to stores to get us in.
We have a current web store that
launches this weekend for consumer sales.
We have several events that we are currently
looking forward to like the Natural Products Expo.
Several launch promotions that are currently
pending, we have a charity partnership
that should launch in 2019, we're hoping
to partner with 98 Rock for that.
At Charmony Naturals we make natural products.
White labeling with love, passion, joy.
It's kinda what we do.
So my grandmother, like many other people,
fell victim to a snake oil that
claimed to be CBD based on Amazon.
And unfortunately, after a lot of
research, it really wasn't, so we plan
to provide people who are buying these
kinds of snake oil, fake products
on Amazon, with the real thing.
So we have made a hemp oil based lotion
to sell on Amazon that goes direct to
the consumer and they get a coupon
to go directly to our website and
get what they really think they're buying.
What they really want.
So a little bit about our customers
before we get into who we're gonna be
selling to and who our target market is.
So our customers are the moms who have back pain
or joint pain and want a little bit of relief.
People who say that they have a poor complexion
and they can't use any products that
don't break them out, and they've very
scared to try new things, and we've
broken a lot of ground with those people
by creating formulas that are great
for people with sensitive skin.
Things that reduce redness, things that
improve your complexion, things that
soften your skin, things that really
just make you look and feel good.
So moms are a big one, people who are
looking to feel and look good is another.
People introducing it to their parents,
and lastly blue collar workers have
been a really surprise market for us.
My biggest customer for bath bombs are actually men.
People who work hard, they use their
muscles all week long, and they like
to relax at the end of the week,
so we're really grateful for people who
try it, and yeah, they converted
from lush bath bombs to ours, so that's great.
So how are we gonna reach these people?
So we're intent on targeting businesses
primarily to do the legwork of selling for us,
so we're looking at health food stores,
yoga and fitness centers for massage oils,
and things that they can use after
workouts to relieve soreness in their muscles.
We're looking at dispensaries on a state
by state basis, a lot of this is meeting
licensing requirements in some states,
others are allowed to import CBD
products into their system provided
testing and labeling criteria are met,
so we're exploring those options.
Headshops is the classic place where people
know that they can find CBD, and we've
closed a few of those already, and lastly
small beauty brands, so we'll be working
with The Messy Buddha to create the
massage oil candles, and they're looking for us
to white label products for their stores as well.
Okay, so traction.
We have $2,000 a month in cash sales
from people we know, word of mouth,
and we're really grateful for those people.
And we have people who are picking up
bath bombs, shampoos, conditioners,
body washes, who rent hairstyling
salons and barbershops and things like that.
And they're picking up our products
and selling them to accessorize
their services that they offer.
We are looking at hair salons who,
what is it, Sprout is an organic
salon here, there's also Crafton
and Hamden and they've expressed
interest in us making products
for them with custom scents and variety,
so we're talking to those people as well.
We have direct consumer sales with
our web store popping up at the end
of the week, we also are reaching out
to the customer, we know that educating
people about CBD is one of the biggest
challenges that we're gonna face, so the
more face time that we get with these
people who are gonna try our products the better.
We are popping up a kiosk in Towson for
their Maker Mart this Saturday, come see
us please, Saturday the 1st of December.
And actually we just got the e-mail to
confirm that we definitely have closed
a kiosk for White Marsh Mall from
November 20th until January 1st,
so we're looking forward to greeting
everybody for their holiday shopping.
And the White Marsh Mall kiosk.
We also have two white label negotiations going on,
one of them I mentioned which was The Messy Buddha.
The other is we have partners that
we've been working with over time in Michigan
who have helped fund this venture early on,
and with the law just having changed with
Election Day there and CBD being legalized now,
they're looking for us to create products
and use our formulas for their brand
Revolutionary Remedies up there too, which is great.
And lastly the web store which
again will be done this weekend.
So how are we gonna use the money?
We know we can crank out new formulas,
we can make body washes that are also
bug repellents for the summer, we can
make gels that help heal your sunburn
in the summer, we can make bath bombs
that are warming in the winter, but we
really need packaging, so we've been
lucky to self-fund this so far.
Friends, family, and favors has been
the whole thing, we fundraised on
GoFundMe to get this far, but the one
thing we can't do ourselves is really
buy the packaging and get the graphic
design that we need, so we're really
hoping to use this prize to elevate our product
to something is gonna look better on a shelf.
Thank you so much.
(applause)
Judges, questions.
Mrs. Attman.
Did you invent the oil, or you got it from
somewhere else, or how did you put it together?
So Maryland allows you to import
hemp-derived CBD extracts from other states,
and how this all really got started was
that I worked with a couple friends who
were growing hemp, and it was their
startup in Colorado, they partnered
with a celebrity licensing deal, and I
helped work their booth when they
were getting started, they bought and
sold their company twice now, but we're
lucky to see their farms popping up
in various states, so we're able to
work with them to source our CBD extracts,
and then we use them in our consumer goods.
Is that like a massage oil too or not?
So by, in and of itself it is kinda
a purified, refined extract, so you
don't wanna use it alone unless maybe
it's in a supplement as like a whole
plant extract which some people do internally,
but in consumer goods you wanna add
them to a carrier oil, yes, like a
massage, a jojoba or a coconut oil.
So you put that oil into the massage oil.
Yes.
Okay, just wondering.
Of Course.
Other questions?
Judges?
Sure.
So obviously your timing is very good on this.
Have you talked to some of the dispensaries in
Maryland about placing your product there?
Yes, actually we've been in talks with
a few people who are managing dispensaries
and people who have processing licenses
to possibly share our formulas with them.
Out of state we have people in Michigan
who have a processing license there,
and that's how they're working with
Revolutionary Remedies, so we're in talks with
a few dispensaries both in the state and outside.
So do the dispensaries, they don't
necessarily source their products
exclusively, they can sell any product that
fits the description of cannabis related--
So in dispensaries in Maryland, the way
we have to sell with them is kinda, you have
to dance around the legal checkerboard
that everybody's dealing with right now,
so inside the dispensaries they're allowed
to sell things from the psychoactive
medicinal cannabis that's grown within
the MMCC system here, but a lot of them,
probably about half or more of them,
are popping up wellness centers next door
where they sell the accessories and
everything that isn't specifically cannabis.
Hemp-derived products that come from
in or out of state, your glassware,
your vaporizer accessories, are all
being sold in the wellness centers next door and
that's how we're gonna be able to work with them.
So I wanna tell you that I think your
name is excellent, Hemp and Healthy.
I would put that more prominently on your product,
but this strikes me as the new shea butter right?
Shea butter was the big thing, and I
think this could be the next big wave.
Yeah, we've been really excited by
the feedback we've been getting from
people who tried our products,
so we really hope you enjoy it.
I'm sorry if you went over this when
you were introducing yourself, but what
attracted both of you to this particular line?
I was never, for a long time--
'Cause see hemp and stuff like that's my generation.
I have a friend in the audience who's gonna
be, he's gonna be teasing me for loving CBD
so much now, 'cause for a long time I was
one of those people who thought it was
snake oil, and I really had a a really
bad year last year and it triggered some
PTSD for me, and CBD and trying it through
the friends who are growing it and really
getting to try their stuff was what
convinced me that it really worked.
Trying it in topicals, making it for
my mom, she has arthritis, my dad had
knee replacement surgeries, I started
making it for friends and family,
and then getting more and more requests
from people to push my creativity for new products.
I really started using the body wash,
the shampoos and conditioners, the bath
bombs on a Friday or a Saturday night,
and I really find that they increase my sense
of wellbeing, so I'm a big believer in it.
So that's super great that you guys
are at 2,000 in monthly revenue.
Yes, we've only been open four months.
That's awesome.
I just wanna get a sense of how you envision this unfolding.
How do you project your revenue or what's
your desired revenue over the next,
in year one, year two, and year three?
I mean we'd like to sell as much as possible and
reach as many people as possible, so I never,
I feel like I've never put a firm number on it.
I think beyond just making revenue, I'm really
exciting about creating new formulas and
finding all the different ways that
we can make people happy with it.
Reach as far and as fast as possible.
Once we sell in the malls, we think that the
gates will really be open and people
will understand, especially here in Maryland,
what it is that they can do with CBD.
So after that it'll be a race to
get as much revenue as we can.
One more quick question, you mentioned
the snake oil a couple times, how do you help
folks know that this is the real deal versus
the other competitive products that are out there?
So part of the way that you are legal
to sell in Maryland is that your products
are tested, so one, we know the farms
that are growing, we know the strains
that they're using, our products come in tested,
we get the ingredients tested a second time
just to verify that there's no pesticides
even though we know that there's not
gonna be, that the potency is there,
that the purity is there, everything, and then
the final batches are tested as well, and these
are sample labels that we've been using
while we got started up, so they don't
have a bar code, but all of our products
will have a QR code that people can go
online, they can see who made them, they can
see the lab results for our products by the batch.
All right.
What does it do?
What does it do.
There are a number of benefits.
Most people are familiar with the
internal benefits of CBD, but topically
it has antiinflammatory effects which
contributes to the loosening of your joints,
but also decreasing redness in your face.
It's a mild analgesic, so it'll relieve
a little bit of pain which makes it great for
sunburn and bug bites, and also just sore muscles.
It has anti-proliferative properties which means
it affects cell regulations of capacites
which produce oils, it also has been shown
to affect the cell process that controls
psoriasis, so there's a chance it might
benefit people with dermatitis as well.
And there's a lot of buzz about it
being a really great acne treatment.
So topically it's a really interesting ingredient.
All right, thank you judges for your questions.
Thank you Brittney and Demi.
(applause)
Why don't you stay here.
I'd like to invite the other contestants out,
we're gonna have one more round of applause,
you get to see the contestants one more time.
Bring them in.
(applause)
I don't know about these judges, I think
they have their work cut out for you,
but I think you all do as well.
Make sure that you pick your favorites,
they're not there, all right, well...
Come on out one more time everyone.
Give a round of applause for our contestants for tonight.
(applause)
Well deserved.
All right.
So that concludes the pitch presentation
part of our evening, so I'd like to
invite all of you to join us out in
the atrium where we'll have food
and coffee and water, we are a university,
and you'll have a chance, while the judges
will do their deliberations, to meet
with each of these contestants, ask them
questions that you might have.
But thank you all for coming.
Stick around, in about 20 minutes we'll
be awarding our three prizes for the evening.
So this is what you've been waiting for tonight.
A chance to see who our winners were.
It was a difficult job right?
It was an extremely difficult job,
we could've been back there for a little longer,
but we didn't wanna hold everybody up.
I'd like to have all of the
participants please come up front.
Everybody.
(applause)
Everybody here?
Johnathon, Harris?
When I call you, come over here.
First and foremost, I'm most appreciative
to all of you that supported everybody,
and let's give them all one big round of applause.
(applause)
Prior to giving out the prizes, we have
something for each one of you to take with you.
One is a book on the Attman family
and what we all do and how we all
participate in Baltimore and the
metropolitan area, so Johnathan and Harris,
come on over, give everybody a book.
There may be...
Okay.
I have one that's shy because I didn't
know that there were seven of us that
were participating in six, but I have
another book, I have to go find it, so don't
worry about it, you're not gonna be held back.
And we have for each one of you two tickets
to our University of Maryland
basketball game at College Park.
(applause)
There we go.
So you can take your favorite friend, character, lover.
(laughter)
Okay.
Should be two in each one.
All right?
Thank you.
All right.
All right, so everybody is a winner here
at the University of Baltimore all the time.
That's what we like, and I really
appreciate the enthusiasm that
everybody had both in the audience
and especially all our presenters.
We're gonna start off with...
This is the crowd favorite that you all voted for.
So all of you collectively made this choice,
and we're glad to present this to Kareema McLendon.
(applause)
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Right here guys please.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, give her a big round.
(applause)
All right.
Very very difficult choosing between
second and first and first and second.
Actually if we had the ability we'd like
to make everybody first, and in our minds
everybody here that presented is first.
So for the second, upon the voting, is Charmony Naturals.
Phyllis.
Don't take any pictures until my wife comes.
(laughter)
You guys stand over here.
Where you want?
That's it.
Yeah, there we go.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you very much.
All right, congratulations to you.
Great success.
(applause)
Last, but not least, and first in
a choice that was very very much
debated back in the room, it was
getting hot, we had to open the doors.
So the choice turns out to be Prevail,
let's give her a big round of applause.
(applause)
Phyllis.
Step this way guys.
Where do you want?
All right, gotta go this way, all right.
This way, that way.
Here we go, one, two, three.
Thank you.
(applause)
Thanks everybody for coming, there's still
some food left, and there's still quite
a bit of networking to do, so thank you,
and again Mr. Attman, thank you very much.
(applause)
I also want to encourage all of you
for additional ideas on how to make
this particular presentation better
so that we can have much more participation
from everyone that's around and encourage
more of the students and those who
are outside working very hard to
participate with us, so we encourage all of
you to write to the University of Baltimore
and to our presentation committee.
Better ideas, we would like to hear
from each and every one of you.
Thank you all very much, and thank you very much for coming.
(applause)
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