UNH Entrepreneurship Center Newsletter

The ECenter is the co-curricular heart of ideas, innovation, and entrepreneurship at UNH. Our goal is to create the next generation of leaders with an entrepreneurial mind-set who can see opportunities and identify creative solutions others have missed, one idea at a time. Although part of UNH, we are independent of any one college.

July 2022 Newsletter

The Latest Happenings from the ECenter

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Hopefully you are reading this newsletter while relaxing and recharging on vacation.

The importance to take a break and recharge cannot be emphasized enough. For me, downtime has helped provide “white space” for many new ideas and programs. So important is the time when we set aside the day-to-day of to-do lists and meetings allowing for the brain to spin and unleash its creativity! While the ECenter team works all year, we do find time to escape for long weekends or a week vacation with family and friends knowing the sprint of the semester is only weeks away!

That said, there are 22 UNH students having the most impactful summer of their college career in our summer programs, the Summer Seed Grant and the Paid Student Internship at Start-ups. These programs present a golden opportunity for students to be paid to work on their own idea while partnered with a mentor to guide them or be in the trenches with start-up founders/co-founders learning and experiencing the start-up life.

We are so excited and proud of the UNH team at SideGuide: Caleb Peffer ‘22, Eric Ciarla ‘22, Nick Silberstein Camara ‘21, and Garrett Frohman ’21. They placed 2nd in the Paul J. Holloway Prize competition and an even bigger prize turned out a few weeks later: an invitation to be one of 25 companies to be selected in the highly prestigious Y Combinator Accelerator this summer in Silicon Valley! The selection certainly confirms the advice I often share which is that no idea or start-up is defined by one set of competition judges on any given specific day. It can be a long and challenging journey to build a successful company. During a year of historical firsts for UNH student companies, this is yet another one as the first ever UNH ECenter company selected by Y Combinator.

While our team has the habit of keeping our heads down, industriously working to execute the ECenter's vision, it is nice when peers from around the country recognize our work and impact. We are very appreciative to the Deshpande Foundation for presenting us with the 2022 Excellence in Student Engagement in Entrepreneurship Award. It truly is a team award!

Enjoy the last half of summer and stay curious!

Ian Grant

Executive Director, ECenter

[email protected]

ECenter Receives 2022 Deshpande Award

For Student Engagement

The ECenter was recognized by the Deshpande Foundation at the national Deshpande Symposium on Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Higher Education in Cleveland, OH, on June 16th and awarded the 2022 Excellence in Student Engagement in Entrepreneurship Award.

The purpose of the award is to recognize an institution that encourages student leadership and engagement in developing innovative extra and co-curricular activities that support the development of entrepreneurial awareness, skills and practice. For more details, please read UNH Today's article here.

i2 Passport Awards $12,500

From left to right: Gracie Jordan '25 (PAUL), Will Dunbar '23 (COLA), Emily Abrusci '25 (COLSA),

and Allison Martin '24 (COLSA)

During the spring, we conducted the 11^th edition of i2 Passport. If you aren't already familiar with i2 Passport, it's the flagship ECenter program that rewards students for participating in activities and events on the Durham campus with the chance to win money to pay down student loans or pay for tuition.

We set a few records for i2 Passport this past academic year. An i2 Passporter won 1st place for both the fall 21 and spring 22 semesters! Emily Abrusci ’25, an environmental conservation and sustainability major (COLSA) won 1st place for the last two consecutive editions. She collected 29,350 out of 31,350 possible Visa Stamps Credits (VSC) and won $3,500. Can you believe she also won last fall by collecting every single possible VSC?

When accepting her prize, Emily said: "This really is an amazing program. I was able to learn about entrepreneurship in a way that applied to my own business and get money to help pay for my tuition. My Grey-t Water business idea was created through i2 Passport and it's now going to the Holloway competition because of the program and the way it's moved us along."

Allison Martin '24, a wildlife and conservation biology major (COLSA), came in 2nd place with 27,000 VSC and received $2,500. She said: "Going into the program and to all these different ECenter events has been completely life-changing for me. It has opened my eyes to the possibility of maybe running my own business and have an entrepreneurial mindset."

Will Dunbar '23, a communications major (COLA), came in 3rd place with 26,500 VSC and won $2,000. As Will said: "All these events gave me an acquired tasted for entrepreneurship and I appreciate the support along the way. I am more confident now as an entrepreneur."

Gracie Jordan '25, a Paul College student (undeclared), earned the FirstGen $1,500 prize with 15,000 VSC. When accepting her prize, Gracie reflected: "I met an amazing community here at the ECenter. I realized I was surrounding myself with really amazing, innovative, and smart people who made me want to do better and gave me a growth mindset."

In addition to the four winners, the ECenter team proceed to draw three $1,000 runner-up prizes: Samantha Pearson '25 (CEPS), Madison McEachern '23 (COLSA), and Jason Plant '23 (Paul).

Thank you to our generous UNH alumni donors who make this program possible!

ECenter Students Win Spring 2022 Hackathon

From left to right: Catrina Janos '24 (CEPS), Emily Abrusci '25 (COLSA), Allison Martin '24 (COLSA),

and Sia Manna '25 (CEPS)

This spring, UNH undergraduate and graduate students were invited to join us for 24 hours of creating, hacking, and competing at the 2022 Hack New Hampshire challenge. The April 8-9, 2022, hackathon co-hosted by the ECenter and the UNH-InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) awarded cash prizes worth over $2,000 in 3 categories.

After reviewing the challenge's details, six teams of 2 to 4 students created innovative solutions to help New Hampshire. The students collaborated with classmates across all UNH colleges to create their own solution or idea.

Participating students developed ideas focused on helping a chosen audience live a healthy lifestyle in our "new normal" that ranged from mental health support, physical health assistance, and animal therapy.

The winning team was comprised of four students among which were three ECenter rockstars. Emily Abrusci '25, Allison Martin '24, and Sia Manna '25. Allison and Sia are both Shaw Innovation Explorers (2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively) and Emily co-founded her start-up, Grey-t Water, with the ECenter's help. Emily was also a semifinalist to the 2022 Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs.

Best Total Package: UP

“UP: Unturned Page” by Emily Abrusci ‘25 (COLSA), Allison Martin ‘24 (COLSA), Sia Manna ‘25 (CEPS), and Catrina Janos ‘24 (CEPS)

Best Working Product: Break Bot

“Break Bot” by Oliver Willis ‘24 (CEPS), Jon Doherty ‘25 (CEPS), Andrew Butler ‘25 (CEPS), and Sean Connors ‘25 (CEPS)

Best Creative Impact: Ani-Meeter

“Ani-Meeter” by Connor Marvin ‘25 (CEPS), Kevin Guzman ‘25 (CEPS), and Nicolas Zerbinopoulos ‘25 (CEPS)

Additional Participating Teams & Solutions:

“RepTrack” by Aaron Limbat ‘24 (CEPS), Cameron Lee ‘24 (PAUL), Kyle Manley ‘25 (PAUL), and Will Dunbar ‘24 (COLA)
“Venture” by Cornelis Plomp ‘22 (CEPS), Dylan Terenzoni ‘23 (CEPS), Harrison Geissier ‘22 (CEPS), and Nick Kahn ‘22 (Graduate School)
“Social Spark” by Caroline McCarthy ‘24 (PAUL), Charles Stumpf ‘22 (CEPS), and Timothy Clocksin ‘22 (CEPS)

More details can be found in the UNH-IOL’s press release here.

Thank you to sponsors Liberty Mutual, Arista Network, and Bottomline Technologies for supporting the event and coming to talk about various opportunities for students and soon to be grads!

SideGuide Goes to World-Famous Y Combinator

From left to right: Eric Ciarla '22 (PAUL) and Nick Camara '21 (CEPS)

Are you ready for another historical success story about a student start-up founded at the ECenter? Caleb Pfeffer ’22, Eric Ciarla ’22, Nick Camara ’21, and Garrett Frohman ’21 founded SideGuide in early 2022 as a customer-suggested outcome for their previous company, FlutterBricks. SideGuide went on to place 2nd at UNH's Paul J. Holloway Prize competition in May.

While not winning 1st place in the competition was an understandable disappointment, what came next more than made up for it. The Y Combinator (YC) story started a few weeks before graduation. The team was prepared to go full-time with SideGuide but was experiencing the burden of financial pressure due to student loans and other financial obligations. That led them to apply to a few different start-up accelerators including the world-famous YC. After getting a few rejections, the co-founders started entertaining the idea of raising funds from local angel investors from the Seacoast of NH who had eagerly approached them after attending their Holloway presentation. These angel investors were more than excited about the team, the idea, the market success, and the amount of customers to-date.

During the prep for a follow-up meeting with potential investors, an email arrived to interview at YC. Milestone moment. Everyone dropped what they were doing and full-on tweaked and practiced the presentation during the days leading to the interview. All the practice at the ECenter with their coach, Ian Grant, ECenter executive director, all the metrics, all the questions from Holloway gave them a confident head-start. It is rare, need one say almost impossible to get this kind of attention let alone receive an invitation to interview with Y Combinator. The overall acceptance rate is under 2%.

As the saying goes, you get only one chance to make a first impression! Caleb, Eric, Nick, and Garrett knew they needed to be flawless. After all YC accepted and helped grow companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, and Instacart. The pitch was only 10 minutes long and while the team felt they did well it was much too short to get all their points across.

As the four students anxiously waited to learn about the outcome, past interviewees informed them that a phone call would come if they were accepted and an email would notify them if they weren't. After a couple of hours an email arrived saying YC was interested in a follow-up meeting. Having received an email the team’s bubble deflated. But it wasn’t a “No” so they prepped again to share information they hadn’t been previously able to. They were ready! Once their arrived for the meeting they quickly learned there was no longer a need to pitch. The YC partner just said “Congrats, you're in!”

“YC has been an incredible experience so far and we are working harder than ever to make our vision a reality. The foundation we built at UNH and specifically the ECenter has been invaluable for this endeavor,” said Eric Ciarla. Caleb Peffer added, “Just months ago, we had no clue how we would sustain our business after graduation, just that we would do whatever it took to keep our vision alive. Now we have the support of one the premiere start-up accelerators in the world. It's a dream come true, and we couldn't have made it here without the help of the UNH ECenter."

YC has invested $500k in SideGuide. The UNH students flew to California where they have been living and building their company in San Francisco. The YC summer experience has been invaluable. They continue to network with other accomplished founders and they are being guided by a group of dedicated partners who are successful YC founders (many of whom have built huge companies). The YC team is hosting weekly meetings with them, called office hours, and they are helping SideGuide work out the many challenges faced by an early-stage venture.

Since YC started Caleb, Eric, Nick, and Garrett have grown SideGuide’s revenue about 20% every week and we hope they continue their momentum into Demo Day which marks the end of the YC program in September. At Demo day they will present and meet with investors from the Bay Area.

SideGuide is the first course platform built inside a code editor and the company helps aspiring coders learn and build real applications in a real environment.

Introducing the 2022-2023

Idea & Innovation Society Cohort

This coming academic year’s Idea & Innovation Society cohort will meet and kick-off on September 1st. The first-year students will receive a swag bag and get to know each other. The friendships and partnerships they'll form over the next year will last a lifetime. Not only for their years at UNH, but beyond.

A few fun facts about the group:

4 UNH colleges are represented
12 different majors
6 US states
3 countries
7 have started businesses
11 are women

The Idea & Innovation Society is an exclusive group of aspiring first-year students who are idea creators, innovative thinkers, or entrepreneurs from across UNH. The goal of the Idea & Innovation Society is to provide students with the opportunity to be at the forefront of the idea and innovation community on campus, while gaining unique benefits through the ECenter. It embraces first-year students from all colleges, majors, and backgrounds and provides a network of like-minded individuals with whom to connect, collaborate, share ideas, and resources.

To learn more about the Idea & Innovation Society, please visit our website.

Thank you to Service Credit Union for sponsoring the Idea & Innovation Society!