Win $10,000 to fuel your business idea

By JAMIE ABELL on November 2, 2023

The 2024 College Cup Innovation Challenge at the StarTUp at the Armory is home to the next $10,000 idea. Current students, recent alums and accepted students from across the university can enter as teams of no more than five to bring their entrepreneurial ideas and innovations to life. Any student with an idea passionate about turning it into a successful venture should attend an information session on Nov. 9 or Nov. 17 before applications open in 2024, regardless of major or college affiliation.

“This is a place where the real world happens every single day,” says Patrick McQuown, executive director of entrepreneurship. “When you’re building your ideas in the StarTUp, you’re surrounded by people actually earning business, making income, taking meetings and so much more.”

Last year’s College Cup brought a wide range of ideas from Mindful Movements, a non-profit dedicated to empowering individuals to unleash their limitless potential, to Misplaced, a business with a software that serves as a lost and found platform to connect those that lost with those that found. The concepts came from students whose majors ranged from physics to dance and beyond.

All participants attend a month-long bootcamp hosted by the StarTUp to refine the venture and prepare for final pitches. Led by McQuown, TU alums and faculty, it consists of workshops and mentor sessions to help develop the students’ ventures.

In addition to $10,000 to be used to towards their venture, the winner, determined by a panel of judges, will automatically receive a coveted spot in the StarTUp Accelerator. Members in that eight-week, cohort-based fellowship, work collaboratively to accelerate their individual ventures. The 2023 StarTUp Accelerator cohort included entrepreneurs such as Evan Haas at CurveAssure, who is optimizing spinal assessment to help patients with chronic back pain, and Brett Lanier, who created Bettor Vision —a free mobile app that combines traditional fantasy, daily fantasy and sports betting accounts.

Conrad Brake, a co-founder of a 2022 College Cup venture Let's Tap In, entered the StarTUp Accelerator and said, “We were able to look at the portfolio of companies that were going to be joining us and we were ecstatic to be working with Harvard MBAs and Stanford JDs. The eight weeks was really eye-opening, uncomfortable in the sense that we were learning how to scale and fund a business.”

After their time in the Accelerator, Let’s Tap In received an unsolicited investment of $100,000 for a 2% stake in their business. Brake and Ryan Tutkowski (also a co-founder) became part of Maryland Inno’s Under 25, a list that recognizes Baltimore’s entrepreneurs on the rise.

It all started with the College Cup.