Babson College Hosts First Miami Rocket Pitch; WINners (Women Innovating Now Lab Participants) Take $18,000 in Cash Prizes
From left to right: Cargo42, Palmpress, and Stow Simple with their cash prizes at the inaugural Babson Miami Rocket Pitch
Babson College hosted its first-ever Miami-based Rocket Pitch competition at CIC Miami on Thursday, November 17, 2016.
The event was sponsored by the Babson Alumni Club of South Florida, Miami Finance Forum, and CIC’s nonprofit partner organization Venture Café Miami.
Babson’s signature event—a unique, fast-paced pitch competition now held annually in Wellesley, MA, San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, and Miami, FL—gives entrepreneurs three minutes and three PowerPoint slides to showcase their business ideas in a clear and concise manner to potential investors or other interested parties.
Twenty-five interested entrepreneur teams applied to compete in the 2016 Miami Rocket Pitch, and eight were ultimately selected to pitch. Six of the entrepreneur teams were Babson Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab Miami participants—also known as WINners, and three went on to win $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 respectively.
Stow Simple®
Stow Simple is storage that comes to you. With a click of a button your boxes, furniture and other items are picked up, stored and returned to your door.
WINner Silvia M. Camps, Founder and CEO of Stow Simple, shares: “Babson Rocket Pitch is a powerful way to present a new business idea. In three minutes you must vividly convey your idea and opportunity. The WIN Lab provided me with the discipline and tools to better articulate Stow Simple’s market opportunity and value. We are taught presentation techniques to capture and engage an audience, given a safe platform to experiment, and provided feedback on how to improve our performance. We are surrounded by an amazing community of women who challenge and inspire us to not only to grow, but also uniquely contribute to each other’s entrepreneurial journey.”
Palmpress
Palmpress is a personal craft coffee press for hot and cold brew.
WINner Jessica Do, Palmpress Creator, adds: “Rocket Pitch was such an exciting opportunity and boost for Palmpress. I love the format of three slides and three minutes, which forces your pitch to be really punchy and clear about an ask. A huge thanks to WIN Lab for being my ultimate pitching coach, consistently putting me in front of audiences for presentations, and providing actionable critique.”
Cargo42
Cargo42 is an on-demand marketplace for local trucking, committed to reducing empty miles and simplify shipping for all.
“When I joined the WIN Lab last year, I just had an idea. I left the program with a product and a pilot up and running. The program not only supported me during my business’ first steps, but also in my personal development. Mostly, I have been coached in how to pitch and clearly present my ideas, getting myself ready to face investors in the future,” says WINner Francine Gervazio, Co-founder of Cargo42.
All prizes were provided by Miami Finance Forum and courtesy of a grant obtained through The Knight Foundation.
Babson’s Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab
Created in Boston in 2013 by the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) at Babson College, Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab provides women entrepreneurs with an inspiring community and a rigorous, experiential process that catalyzes innovative thinking and enables them to successfully launch or transform businesses.
WIN Lab Miami
In early 2016, Babson announced that its WIN Lab would launch a new program in Miami with a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It later confirmed a collaboration with CIC Miami—the newest expansion out of the Cambridge Innovation Center in Massachusetts, to host all WIN Lab entrepreneurs at CIC’s brand new space in the city. The WIN Lab has also implemented programming with The LAB Miami, an innovation space in Wynwood, to offer a series of events targeting the local ecosystem. At a September kickoff event with Venture Café, Win Lab Miami was pleased to name the 22 women entrepreneurs who would be participating in its new program. One-hundred and eighty teams applied.