‘Pitch Night’ in Wayne

WAYNE  With nerves of steel and laser focus, Jason Agnoli stood at the podium on stage in the gym of DePaul Catholic High School here to make his “pitch” of the entrepreneurial kind.

Dressed in a business suit, Agnoli, a DePaul senior, weathered intense pressure on the night of Jan. 21 to deliver a presentation to sell investors — in the gym and on videoconferencing — about his innovative product idea. Armed with a catchy name, The Slide Basket makes it easier for people to carry laundry by giving them a basket with an incline-shaped bottom that could slide up and down the stairs, he said in his PowerPoint slide presentation.

That evening, eight teams with 11 would-be entrepreneurs who are entrepreneurial engineering students, took their best shots presenting their products and business plans to these real-world investors — almost like on the TV show “Shark Tank.” Each team is vying for a significant investment to help get its idea off the ground. Never­theless, unlike the TV show, these “shark” investors had no teeth, not criticizing the students but instead giving them only positive suggestions. They are “angel investors,” high-net-worth people, who give seed money to start-up businesses in exchange for a financial stake in the company.

“I was thinking ‘What would make life easier?’ I saw my mother struggling with the laundry, so I came up with the Slide Basket,” Agnoli said after the event, DePaul’s first-ever “Pitch Night.” He planned to study engineering in college in the fall but because of this course, switched to business. “Engineering and business share a parallel: they are both about solving problems. I love putting something together to see if it is a feasible solution and trying to get investors excited about it. I went over my presentation so many times, I was confident,” he said.

Serving as host for “Pitch Night” was Douglas Muir, entrepreneurship professor at DePaul. An experienced entrepreneur, university professor, and CEO of the Family Business Fund, he put together the entrepreneurial engineering course, which is required in the school’s Engineering and Computer Science Honors Academies, with Sue Parler, DePaul’s technology director. Muir teaches the business component while Parler teaches the technology to develop the products.

That night, seating in the gym was limited due to the pandemic so the presenters and their families in the audience wore face masks and followed COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing.

First to give a pitch — limited to 10 minutes — was Catherine Serek, senior, for her device, Climax Energy Saver, which she said solves the problem of wasting energy with electrical outlets that emit power even when no items are plugged in. The device consists of sensors plugged into the outlets to tell users how much power is being wasted and enable them to shut down the power to these outlets — all from an app on their cell phone, she said.

Like the rest of these would-be Elon Musks or Jeff Bezos, Serek made her presentation outlining a problem, the way the proposed device solves that problem, how it compares with the competition, the target market, distribution channels to get the product to market, the timeline of developing and selling the product, and financials. She asked investors for $208,400 in seed money.

“The Climax Energy Saver would save customers money, has more features than the competition, can grow customers who would buy more outlets and is made to last,” said Serek, who heard investors urge her to budget for higher production costs than she projected.

Two sophomores, Maggie Blum and Vanessa Wolf, presented Victual Analytics. A sensor in the refrigerator alerts users when they will run out of certain groceries. Through a phone app, they can add items to a virtual shopping cart to be delivered now or included in a later shopping order at a local store, they said.

Another app, Stock Market Tutor, was developed by Michael Dox, a sophomore, to enable minors to simulate investing in the stock market, which they are legally prohibited from doing. It also features games and investment tutorials, Dox said.

Nicole Okur, a sophomore, pitched her idea for Guard Light, starting with a scenario, “You know when you are driving and a deer jumps out and hits your car, causing a lot of damage …” The device consists of a strip of lights and sensors on each side mirror with a siren inside to alert nearby motorists of potential danger, she said.

“This could save money in damage to your car and others and even save lives,” Okur said.

Like Guard Light, Fire Beacon consists of a sensor, this time on a fire extinguisher, with an alarm to alert users to the location of the extinguisher in the residence and send a message to the local fire department, said the team of Jason Alcott and Kevin Barahona, sophomores.

Another product, E Circuit, has a sensor in a home’s electrical panel to let users know which circuits are using up lots of power and which circuit breakers need to be reset, said Luciano Polifonte and Cooper Montelbano, sophomores, in their presentation.

In the final pitch, Nicholas Scirocco, a junior, and Damian Scelba and Garret Wolf, sophomores, presented Slip Finder. It solves the problem when boaters are out at sea and sail into a marina only to find that no slips — docks for boats — are available. An app enables boaters to see the available slips and reserve a spot at a certain time, they said.

One investor was John Rondi, CEO of Stunited Inc., a social and academic marketplace. He called the DePaul students “far ahead [in having experienced entrepreneurship] in high school.

“I’m super impressed with them. Many of these ideas are worth pursuing,” Rondi said.

Now, the 11 student entrepreneurs wait to hear of any offers for funding that could pay for labor, materials, equipment, marketing, and promotion needed for their products. Muir is set to teach them how to run a start-up company.

“They all did a great job. These students think they can do anything and have tremendous learning capacity,” Muir said.

After pitching her Climax Energy Saver idea, Serek told The Beacon that she enjoyed attending to all the details of starting up a business in developing her plan.

“It was satisfying because I could start with an idea, develop it, and get on a stage to present it to people,” Serek said.