50 Students, 7 Startups, 3 Days

During the weekend of Nov. 7, students from all over the Texas A&M University System came together to do the impossible: create a business in only three days. Every semester, the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) hosts 3 Day Startup and challenges students to compress three months’ worth of work into one weekend. This semester was the first time West Texas A&M, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M at Galveston and the Texas A&M School of Law sent student participants to College Station.

3 Day Startup aims to teach students through experience about the trials and triumphs of starting a business. The students are encouraged to use the risk-free environment of the weekend to work on ideas they are passionate about and would be interested in pursuing after the program has ended. Mentors and professors from Texas A&M are present throughout the weekend to help the students fine-tune their businesses.

Students began their weekend by meeting that Friday at Startup Aggieland and brainstorming ideas that they then pitched to one another. When pitches were completed, the students voted on the top seven ideas worth pursuing and then broke into teams. They had until Sunday to turn their idea into a feasible startup venture.

Participants returned to Startup Aggieland early Saturday morning to begin researching market viability, creating logos and business plans, and building their mid-point pitches. That evening, students presented their startups to a room of mentors and fellow participants and gained feedback on how to improve their ventures. At this point many groups had changed their names, logos or entire business models multiple times and now only had 24 hours to perfect their startup for Sunday’s final pitches.

By Sunday evening, the participants were ready to face the judging panelists. Each team gave a 10-minute presentation to a panel of mock investors and answering five minutes of Q&A. Their knowledge about their startup was tested, but each group of participants rose to the challenge. Once final pitches concluded the groups received final feedback comments from investors.

This semester’s teams focused on solving consumers’ problems. Their ideas included:

A phone app to help those fighting substance addiction
High-quality modular housing that could be used overseas in relief efforts
A phone app that provides users with information on how busy their favorite places are
Visual information mapping that could help doctors easily identify correlating diseases
For many groups, their hard work paid off when they were approached by possible investors or were invited to become Entrepreneurs in Residence at Startup Aggieland.

ABOUT MAYS BUSINESS SCHOOL

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,600 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.