“Whoever invented the burger was smart, but the person that invented the cheeseburger was a genius.” – Matthew McConaughey I’ve realized that inventing “hamburgers” is hard. So, during the past few years I have found myself keeping an eye out for the opportunity to put some “cheese” on a juicy “burger”. Towards the end of 2019, I began to pursue an idea that I thought might be a “cheeseburger”. I brought the idea to my teammate Kumar Vijayendra and we began working on our business venture, BestCity, five months before the 2020 Randall Family Big Idea Competition.
Ladies, let's be real: we could all use some encouragement when it comes to navigating the business world as a woman. All too often, we can feel like we aren't good enough or need to change ourselves in order to fit in, especially to relate with the men on the team. Here at the Big Idea Center, we believe that women are powerful trailblazers in the business industry and want to support their mission in pursuing entrepreneurship! In this blog article, the ladies of the Big Idea Center share their words of wisdom, personal stories, and tips & tricks on how women can embrace themselves as the awesome businesswoman they truly are and shape their own mold in the world of innovation and entrepreneurship!
The HEARTio team (from left to right): Michael Leasure '17, Utkars Jain, PhD '20, and Adam Butchy, PhD '20. Photo courtesy of Utkars Jain. In our next installment of our "Beyond the BIC" blog series, we're catching up with Utkars Jain '20, a Pitt alum and Co-Founder & CEO of Pitt spinout HEARTio, as he shares the inspiration behind his startup, what Big Idea Center lessons he still uses to this day, where HEARTio is at now, and what advice he has for student entrepreneurs!
The CampusGrüv team -- Ron Idoko (pictured left) and Saket Rajprohat (pictured right) -- at the Randall Family Big Idea Competition. Diversity and inclusion and its effects around the world have become focal points for conversations and structural change in many organizations lately. Generally, we all agree that we should be inclusive of all types of people and build our work on a diverse foundation to give it strength, but this is something that I had questioned at one point. Of course, it is wrong to discriminate - but it seems natural to believe that we just get along better with people who think like us, act like us, and talk like us. Often though, even though it may sometimes be easier to get the work done, the ending result turns out to be a poor version of the product that could have been. When your work is not built on an inclusive foundation, it fails to reach the people that could benefit from it the most. This is something I have come to learn in my time working on CampusGrüv.
Eva Roy (left) and Anjana Murali (right) at the 2020 Randall Family Big Idea Competition Semi Finals Question: What do you get when you put 2 Yelpers in medical school? Answer: An invention?!?! You probably didn’t see that coming. And the truth is, we didn’t either. We’ll explain. But first, let us introduce ourselves. Hi! We are Anjana and Eva. We are 3rd year medical students at Pitt Med and we are also the co-founders of PENY, the Patient Experience Navigator.
Here at the Big Idea Center, we offer a variety of different programs and services to help students dive into the wonderful world of innovation and entrepreneurship, such as our Big Idea Blitz 24 hour idea-to-pitch competition, the Randall Family Big Idea Competition (where students can win the grand prize of $25,000!), our summer Blast Furnace student accelerator program, and much more. While all this sounds awesome, we would really like to think that our greatest asset is our entrepreneurs in residence (commonly referred to as EIRs)!
Kelly Collier, Entrepreneur in Residence What inspired you to become an entrepreneur? I was more of an accidental entrepreneur. I never really sought out to become an entrepreneur, but once I found myself in a situation where I had a product that I truly believed could help a lot of people, I couldn’t stand the thought of the wasted potential if it never reached the market. I also realized that even though this product may have been a great idea, it’s not like other people are going to be lining up to put in the work and take on the risk trying to commercialize it if I wasn’t willing to myself. Ultimately, I was more inspired by the opportunity than I was fearful of the challenge, and I think that’s a recipe that encourages many first time entrepreneurs to take the leap.
Founder/Principal Attorney of Trellis Legal, LLC and Pitt alum Marlene van Nelson '15. Photo courtesy of Marlene van Nelson. I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, I always wanted to work for an environmental non-profit or policy office. But in law school, my dream changed when I saw a need for cost-effective, accessible, legal services for small businesses and farms. I saw that traditional legal services often have unpredictable hourly costs and may not have a good understanding of small business relationships. I was applying for legal jobs, but consistently finding that nothing fit my passion and I wanted to find a way to serve those needing legal help to start and grow. And, I wanted to innovate and disrupt how legal services are delivered.
Trek consulting with entrepreneur in residence Don Morrison and Big Idea Center director Babs Carryer on their Randall Family Big Idea Competition presentation Let’s get to the topic at hand: 5 Reasons Why You Should Get Involved with the Big Idea Center. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking to you students who have thought about it for quite some time but haven’t tried it because “well, it might take up a little too much time”, “I don’t have an idea yet”, “it costs a lot of money”, etc. …we’re going to talk about all of that! Let’s dive in shall we?
