2007 BPC Winners: Update

Beat the Heat:  Winners of the Inaugural BUILD Oakland Business Plan Competition
Nine months ago Beat the Heat was announced the winner at the BUILD Oakland Inaugural Business Plan Competition. Russell O., Emily L., Antonio L., Christina P., and Julia N. eagerly entered the Youth Business Incubator in August and worked diligently to make their business plan a reality. In October the team met with their Venture Capital Advisor for the first time to secure their seeding funding. Once Beat the Heat received their monetary investment, they quickly began to locate vendors and materials to manufacture their ‘sweat soaker’ line. At the Holiday Sales Bazaar, their first selling event of the year, they sold out of their entire inventory!

This past week, the team met with their Venture Capital Advisor and patent lawyer in an effort to begin the process of gaining a patent for the ‘sweat soaker.’ Soon the team will begin preparations for the Spring Sales Bazaar at Oakland’s 2nd Annual Business Plan Competition. In addition, the team will be attending our week long annual Away College Trip to Los Angeles where they will take the opportunity to visit six college campuses as they embark on the journey to select the college of their choice.

Young Hype:  Winners of the 8th Annual BUILD Peninsula Business Plan Competition
Have the winners of the 2007 Peninsula Business Plan Competition been living up to their “hype”? Young Hype, consisting of Andrea H., Manual L., Tania P., and Jessica P., is a group of four spunky students from Menlo-Atherton High School who strive to start up their urban T-shirt apparel business and be the next East Palo Alto success stories.

In preparation for the annual Holiday Sales Bazaar, the team learned that “it is not easy to make 30 shirts each month… but we are devoted to making our team successful no matter how hard it gets.” As a result of their perseverance—and a few late night and weekend group meetings—they were challenged with group dynamics, but got the job done. When asked about selling over 25 shirts at the Holiday Sales Bazaar, the team said, “Our company’s finest moment was when we exceeded our expected sales. Overall, we feel that this experience has helped build up our confidence in presenting our product to other people.”


Back to the Spring 2008 Newsletter...

Looking forward, the team will be coming up with more shirt designs and are investigating more marketing and advertising avenues. Sounds like they truly are living up to the hype!