Breaking the Status Quo

At the Duke Start-Up Challenge, we encourage innovation throughout every step of the process. We encourage our entrants to create out of the box, crazy ideas; we encourage our judges to push our participants to break the mold and make their ideas even better; and internally, we constantly look inside to see how we can improve upon ourselves and how we can make the process better. Each week, we meet to discuss not only what we need to do now, but we take a step back and look at the big picture, which is often neglected in all different kinds of processes.

This year, we are doing things a bit differently. Rather than have a big Grand Finale in April, we want to encourage people to start businesses that they will continue with. Generally, we see a few businesses make it out of the competition, but by using a Demo Day in February, we hope to get some exposure for our teams and practice explaining their concepts in the form of an elevator pitch to those who have not heard of it before. Simultaneously, the teams must learn about marketing in order to publicize their Indiegogo campaigns, garner support, and convince the public to support them financially. Finally, we are expanding the Summer Innovation Program so teams can use the funds they have raised in the Indiegogo campaigns to take 2-3 months to really buckle down and hit the ground running.

Last summer, I spent all day and all night working on my company, Star Toilet Paper. It was an experience that, to this day, I think has taught me more than any other undertaking I have been a part of. I was the salesman, the Chief Marketing Officer, the intern and the website developer. But more than wearing the many necessary hats, I led a team of 8, with my brother and co-founder, and had to develop interpersonal skills that no other job, internship, or class could have taught me. We have a concept that is so unique that the number of naysayers are staggering. However, we use these people as motivation, as people we are going to prove wrong and take the marketing world by storm.

The summer experience I had 8 months ago is one that I hope each participant in the Start-Up Challenge is able to have. They will develop skills that will not only help push their businesses forward, but will give them skills that they never thought they had before, wanted before, or could obtain before. Our participants are taking a step forward from past years, developing their fantastic ideas into even more fantastic businesses that we hope to see flourishing in the near future. They will have a chance to meet some great alumni, receive fantastic advice, pitch their ideas to the audience, and win a few thousand dollars with Judges’ Choice and Audience Choice awards.