The GSEA arrived on a very rainy Monday 4 June in Fairfield, Connecticut for the latest round of regional competition - the GSEA New York and Connecticut Regional Finals. Tropical Storm Barry couldn’t bring down the spirits of our fantastic student entrepreneur finalists, and our panel of judges.
(L to R: Jeff Goldblum, President of SWC Office Furniture, Marc “Doc” Kirshner, Owner of MDK Healthcare Mgmt., Jude Tallman, Owner of Spec Personnel, Stephen Jones, Partner at Jones Sledzik Garneau & Nardone, LLP, Steven Showalter, CEO of Statlinx, Doug Mellinger, CEO of Foundation Source and Richard Goldberg, President of Warm Thoughts Communications.)
The day started out with the host, Doug Mellinger - CEO of Foundation Source, sharing a story of his entrepreneurial background and experience. Doug told the tale of one of his first business ventures - loading up his car with boxer shorts that he had planned to sell in Florida during Spring Break. Turns out that he was lacking permits, sunshine, and a willing group of buyers. Once Doug and his partner did manage to sort things out, it turned out that the students around wanted sunglasses, not boxer shorts. Doug happily bought all the sunglasses available from a supplier in another city and was able to cover the costs of his trip and of the boxer shorts that they had bought but not managed to sell. A great story in learning from your failures!
Boris Soldo, CEO of Solmac, Inc. was the first student to present. Boris shared his story of immigrating to America from Croatia with his background in apprenticeship as a tool and die maker. His biggest challenge was finding initial investment, as his business of custom machining and fabricating metal parts is heavily capital intensive. He solved this challenge through constant learning and revising his business plan, which he evolved to convince the banks to take a risk on a young entrepreneur with a vision.
Kafui Assiobo-Tipoh was next up. Immigrating to the USA from Togo in 2001, Kafui originally wanted to be a pharmacist but had found her passion in helping people to feel beautiful. Her business, Adjoa’s Custom Hair Braiding was purchased through working other jobs until she had saved enough to buy the business. Kafui explained to the judges how the business worked, how she had gotten other family including her sister involved and was looking to grow and expand.
Bryan Vaughan, CEO of Paper Garden Records had just moved to New York four days prior but was ready and willing to display his business and how they were helping to evolve the indie record niche. Using some fantastic custom drawings to show his model compared to the big music companies both impressed the judges and got them laughing. Bryan is continuing to sign new artists and to grow his label which focuses on proper, ethical treatment of artists and capitalizing on the rise of interest in the indie rock niche.
Next up was GSEA veteran Bert Gervais, CEO of ThePlaceFinder.com who had competed at the GSEA Global Finals in 2006. Bert was fired up to present and described how he had survived a near complete torpedoing of his business when his entire website crashed and was barely recoverable. From this disaster Bert has completely rebuilt the business and has focused himself and his team on developing a model for bringing ThePlaceFinder - which connects college students with area landlords for housing rentals, at no cost to either - to campuses across the nation. Bert later donned his bright red company t-shirt and was very proud of his turnaround and his business.
Closing out the presentations was Ilia Nossov, a past winner of the “Growing up CEO” award and owner of Collegeffect.com, which is a marketing company focused on tapping the college student base. Ilia shared his background in student marketing, which includes marketing events, nightclubs, and more.
The seven judges deliberated and scored the student entrepreneurs, and in usual GSEA fashion the scoring was tight. Returning to the GSEA Global Finals with his second consecutive GSEA Regional victory was Bert Gervais of ThePlaceFinder.com and Binghamton University. Joining Bert at the Global Finals will be Boris Soldo, CEO of Solmac.
First Place: Bert Gervais - ThePlaceFinder.com - Binghamton University
Second Place: Boris Soldo - Solmac, Inc. - Buffalo College
Third Place: Ilia Nossov - Collegeffect.com - University at Buffalo
And next up, Philadelphia and New Jersey!
