December 11, 2019

Student-entrepreneurs presented their final business plans in a Dragons’ Den style pitch competition at Medicine Hat College (MHC) Friday afternoon, in hopes of taking home their share of up to $2500 in cash prizes sponsored by ATB Financial.

Throughout the semester, ENTR 2103 and MGMT 270 students gained valuable knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship by developing innovative business ventures based on industry analysis and market research.

“Dragons’ Den is the culmination of 13 weeks of hard work. Throughout the semester, students have pitched four times to various volunteer entrepreneurs who have provided feedback on improving their business idea,” explains Miranda Davies, business administration instructor at MHC.

“Students have worked tirelessly to take feedback and strengthen their projects. It is amazing to see how far the students have come and how close they have become as a team!”

Teams were tasked with coming up with an innovative business idea, then worked to build a business plan focusing on key components of success including identifying the target market, pricing strategy, projected profit and more.

The course concluded with a final pitch to a panel of five judges and fellow competitors, asking the “Dragons” for an investment in start-up funding in the company. Twenty-one teams of two or three students, split into two sections of presentations, each pitched their business ventures during the event.

In sponsoring the pitch competition, ATB Financial gave out a total of $2500 in cash prizes divided amongst the first, second and third place teams in each section, as well as a Most Impactful award in both sections and an overall winner out of the entire group.

The winning teams and business ventures of the ENTR 2301/MGMT 270 Dragons’ Den competition were as follows:

Section A:

• 1st place: Vitamin Bovine: won $600 from ATB: Elizabeth Lewis, Evelyn Schottner, and Sarah Furseth
• 2nd place: Portable Fish Station: won $300 from ATB: Griffin Moline, Maverick Jacksteit, and Brady Resch
• 3rd place: Tiffin Service: won $150 from ATB: Pawandeep Kaur, Harmanpreet Kaur, Amritpal Singh
• Most Impactful: Bottle Depot: won $150 from ATB: Mankirat Singh Khangura, Dilpreet Singh, Ravi Saini

Section B:

• 1st place: Hide-A-Shot: won $600 from ATB: Jaubron Widdis and Amanda Solar
• 2nd place: Voyage Gatekeeping: won $300 from ATB: Brody Bonogofsky, Sky Salonga, Skyla Gavelin
• 3rd place: People’s Transit: won $150 from ATB: Baljinder Singh, Sukhdeep Singh, Harshpreet Kaur
• Most Impactful: Life Strap: won $150 from ATB: Jacob Lukasiewich, Rylan Howard, and Hyeji Kim

The creators of Hide-A-Shot came out on top of the competition, taking home an additional $100 on top of their first place win as the Best Overall Team for both sections.

Congratulations to all teams for your hard work, innovative ideas and successful pitches!