2016 Gustie Entrepreneur CupHighlights

In 2016, the Gustie Entrepreneur Cup expanded from being exclusive to students taking the Entrepreneurship Seminar to include the entire student body. Opening it up to the whole campus contributed new, creative ideas. Participants were evaluated by a team of ten judges.

First place - $5,000 and an automatic advancement to the semi-finals of the Minnesota Cup went to Joncarlo Westerlund '17. Outdoors Advisor is a Yelp-like platform, revolutionizing the way small Minnesota businesses in the hospitality industry interact with their patrons. At the MN Cup, JC was awarded first runner-up in the student division.

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Second place - $4,000 went to Jack Anderson '16 of Life Changing Foods, LLC. a for-profit social enterprise that produces “Doc E’s Life Changing Salsa.” In their first year of existence, the company generated over $27,000 in revenue and funded a fresh water well in Ethiopia.

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Third place - $1,000 went to Scott Mulder '16, Griffin Reed '16 and James Urquhart '16 of Forger Cuisine which developed an innovative prototype of a kitchen-in-a-box. 

Executive Summaries

Campus Connect Mitch Horner '16, Brady Kelley '17, Connor Oak '17, Chad Poppen '16
Campus Connect looks to be the end-all solution to student engagement issues that continue to cripple colleges. This platform, a web-based solution, looks to unify a campus through fine arts, athletics, and various other events in a way that has never been done before. Campus Connect is an incentive-driven program that students accumulate points not only through attendance at events but also through participation in event promotions. These points are then cashed in later for various prizes like gift cards or authentic team apparel. Campus Connect gives schools the tools they have been missing for student engagement.

Compete for Community Investment Carl Ness '16
Compete for Community Investment (CFCI) makes sustainability fun! CFCI will raise awareness about sustainability through a competition structured similarly to fantasy football. Each participant will build a team of companies and a college they believe are sustainable. The entrant who picks the team of entities that are referenced for sustainability the most times in the news over the course of a month wins. Winners will receive the opportunity to allocate the prize money to a sustainable project in their community of choice, in their honor. The ultimate goal is to provide young people with the uncommon power to affect sustainable change.

DIgital FLYers Tenzin Choenyi '18, Rotimi Edu '17
This is Digital Flyers, where we create awareness, promote events, and advertising businesses. Brand recognition and awareness are two important aspects of building a successful business. Your business needs to grab people’s attention, make them aware of your products and services. This has typically been done through the time consuming and expensive process of conventional advertising. At DigitalFlyers.com, we take advertising into the modern age. With our website and Digital Flyer systems, we will create an advertising campaign that finally achieves the success your business has been looking for, all within a budget that you can afford.

FikaFiesta Joakim Ekfeldt '17
Are you up for something completely outrageous? Are you tired of that same food, you don’t even like? There is always the same food everywhere. Franchised restaurants that’s in every city and dishes you keep seeing over and over again. FikaFiesta gives you a way out, we give you a way to broaden your horizons, experience something new and to travel the world all in one. We give you, the Swedish-Mexican fusion Taco. Welcome to our simple, affordable and fun Food Truck, right here in Minneapolis, which will give you an experience like no other. May I taco your order? 

Finished Beer Charlie Adams '16, Jason Schwab '16
Beer is one of the most popular and mass consumed beverages in the world. It is recognized across generations as a symbol of social gathering and memory creation. The big beer companies are in a constant advertising and product battle in order to outsell the other but recently they realized diminished sales. Finished Beer represents a merchandising product that is collectible, marketable, and promotional and serves to improve the sales of beers for all forms of breweries. Our product repurposes used bottle caps into collective and branded aluminum poker sets that are completely customizable.

Forger Cuisine Scott Mulder '16, Griffin Reed '16, James Urquhart '16
Food is a basic need that everyone shares, but young professionals and recent graduates often do not own the basic equipment to make wholesome meals. Forger Cuisine conveniently equips the budding chef by encapsulating kitchen essentials into a multi-functional kitchen-in-a-box. The Forger Box allows an individual to cook from the get-go with the inclusion of high-quality kitchenware and cookware. The product also provides additional value as it functions as a serving tray, cutting board, wine rack, and bottle opener.

Life Changing Foods, LLC. Jack Anderson '16
Life Changing Foods LLC is a for-profit social enterprise that produces premium food products. Our introductory product is “Doc E’s Life Changing Salsa.” What makes it life changing is that a portion of every jar sold is used to build freshwater wells in developing countries. Life Changing Foods LLC is headquartered in St. Peter, MN and has been operating since March of 2015. First-year revenues were over $27,000 and the company funded their first water well in the village of Dekera, Ethiopia providing fresh water to over 400 people.

Sunsculpture, Inc. Arslan Berbic '19, Ignacio Nesdal, Anh Tran '16
At Sunsculpture, we believe that the world deserves better technology, for a more sustainable future. We challenge the status quo by engineering marvelous sculptures that are beautiful monuments to the technological advances of the 21st century while embracing sustainability, openness, and education. Our mission is to make a contribution to the world by making products that inspire ideas and movements. Through the fusion of state-of-the-art technology and beautifully crafted art, we have created a product that has the potential to make a stir in the sustainability industry which has grown continuously by over 35% year after year (SEIA).