Student entrepeneurs recieve grant funding for their businesses
By Nicholas Bainbridge// News Editor
On April 1, four young entrepreneurs at High Point University were informed that they would be receiving grants, but this was not an April Fools’ Day prank. They are the recipients of business grants from HPU’s Pagon Family Promising Entrepreneur Fund. Founded by Leonard and Kata Pagon, the fund is geared towards offering financial support to students with viable business ideas so that they will have sufficient resources to launch a real company. Each of these students plans to use this opportunity to develop their product into a successful business.
Viktoria Heiser, a senior pursuing a degree in business administration, is developing the company Easy Brush. Her product is a toothbrush that makes use of a hole hidden beneath its bristles that releases the optimal amount of toothpaste with the push of a button. While this may seem like a simple invention, which makes life marginally easier for some people, it actually provides an invaluable service to multiple demographics.
Heiser explained that brushing one’s teeth is not an easy task for everyone, as severe conditions can inhibit one’s ability to perform this daily hygienic responsibility. People missing limbs or who suffer from arthritis may experience great difficulty applying toothpaste to a brush.
“I thought about my grandma and how she struggles with having to use both hands to twist off a tiny lid on her toothpaste, and then squeeze the tube to dispense it onto her toothbrush,” Heiser said. “This is where the general idea of combining a toothbrush and toothpaste came from.”
Heiser is filing for a patent for her invention, and she hopes to one day sell her product to a major oral hygiene company such as Colgate.
Anthony Capece, a sophomore studying entrepreneurship, is the founder of Ace Footwear. His company is designing shoes that have the ability to change their soles quickly and conveniently. Different activities require different types of soles, which leads to people spending a substantial amount of money on different shoes when all they need is a change of soles. The versatility of Ace Footwear’s shoe designs will remedy this issue.
“I believe that Ace Footwear will improve life for the consumers by saving them money in the long run,” said Capece. “Instead of having to purchase a new shoe for different activities, they can just purchase a new sole.”
Capece has plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign to acquire additional funding to cover manufacturing and marketing costs to allow the company to fully enter the industry.
Olivia Elsasser, a freshman majoring in sales, is developing a computer program called Smart Lex. This will be a tool downloaded by people with dyslexia to improve their ability to read online.
The program will enable users to manipulate PDFs through various methods, including altering the background color and changing the fonts of the text. This will help people with dyslexia to focus on the words and see them clearly.
“I got the idea of Smart Lex because I have dyslexia,” said Elsasser. “I struggled with learning how to read, and I wanted to develop a program to help kids and adults with dyslexia read more efficiently. I have been able to cope with the struggle of reading, but it takes me a long time to comprehend things, and this makes learning new concepts difficult.
Dylan Silber is a senior studying entrepreneurship and sales and is using this knowledge to develop his company PongPro. PongPro is a practice table designed for games like beer pong, but Silber has stressed that the intention of his product is to reduce drinking during these games that will take place regardless.
The table is designed to return thrown balls after someone makes a shot. This would speed up the game, which Silber believes will substantially decrease how much people drink.
“I saw kids getting so drunk that they were not able to fully control their actions,” Silber explained. “As long as their opponent was making their shot, they were forced to keep drinking. Right there I realized I wanted to become a pro at beer pong. I would end up finishing the games quicker, therefore drink less and not ending up like the students I saw.”
Silber is producing the initial inventory to test how his product will perform in the market, and depending on the results he will turn to Kickstarter in order to raise additional capital.
Each of these students has worked hard to reach this point and have demonstrated that they are on track to become successful entrepreneurs.
The entrepreneurs pictured above are Viktoria Heiser (top left), Olivia Elsasser (top right), Anthony Capece (bottom left) and Dylan Silber (bottom right). Photos by HPU.edu