Picture: An incubator group at the mentor match

On Tuesday, October 11th, students in The FHS INCubator.edu program met with members of the community to pitch their business ideas to the public for the first time. These invitations were sent by Mrs. Christy Pierce to local people with successful backgrounds in business.

Incubator is a student led program that draws inspiration from the hit ABC series Shark Tank. Students are put into teams and tasked with creating a functioning business by the end of the year. To do this, they must come up with an idea, learn legalities and financial terms from their instructor Mrs. Pierce, then put their plans into action. Throughout the year, these teams must present a series of pitches to the community in order to sell other entrepreneurs on their businesses. The first of these is the “mentor match” presentation. This pitch is to match each group of students with an experienced community member to aid them in their business’ development.

Talk about what the INCubator program is
Interview Mrs. Pierce
How has watching the development of these four groups felt?
Do you feel that this event has been successful in aiding the growth of your student’s entrepreneurial mindsets?
Do you feel confident that all of the groups will have a successful business by the end of the year?
How have you prepared for the mentor match presentation?
Group 1: menUs
What is your business’s UVP? We put the U back in Menu’s
How have you prepared for the mentor match presentation? We talked over and had made a ruff script so we all knew when to talk and what to talk about
How well do you think your business was received by the community? I think there was a lot of intrest and positive feedback we did run into somep people who may not be as interested but that was expected
Has this community interaction made you more confident in your abilities? Yes absolutely
Who is their CEO, CFO, COO and CHRO? CEO- Reese Beckett CFO-Josh Wyatt COO- Graycen Pratt CHRO- Jayden Tucker
If there is anything else they would like to add? Nope thank you!

Group 2: IMORTALYZE
What is your business’s UVP? “Our UVP is to provide a way to keep memories of loved ones alive forever, hence the name Imortalyze, by allowing the creation of QR codes and biographies for passed individuals” -Abbie Wigger
How have you prepared for the mentor match presentation? We had the help of the other teams when it came to practicing, we really band as a unit and have each others back. Besides that we gathered as much info as we could give about our business plan and summarized it for the mentors. – Karli
How well do you think your business was received by the community? “I believe that our business has been received very well! Almost everyone at our mentor match had positive feedback on our idea and loved the concept. Overall, my team and I are very happy with how well our idea has been received” -Abbie Wigger
Has this community interaction made you more confident in your abilities? “Yes, my teammates have given me a lot of confidence when it comes to public speaking and we all help each other with things that we are afraid of doing” -Mandy
Who is their CEO, CFO, COO and CHRO? “Karli is the CFO, Mandy is the COO, and Abbie is the CEO” -Mandy
If there is anything else they would like to add? Promote Imortalyze!
Group 3: RePlay
What is your business’s UVP?
How have you prepared for the mentor match presentation?
How well do you think your business was received by the community?
Has this community interaction made you more confident in your abilities?
Who is their CEO, CFO, COO and CHRO?
If there is anything else they would like to add?

The fourth and final group is Modern Media Marketing, a local advertising company that makes quality content at an affordable price. Michael Koppeis, the groups CEO, stated, “We saw that there was a need for affordable local advertising and decided to fill that hole in the market. At this point our group is ahead of the curve considering we already have 3 clients.”
The groups CFO, Taylor Matthiesen, and the two remaining members, Alex Coomer and Annabelle Devoto put together a slide show for the community to view. The group believes that the community saw a lot of promise in their business, but like any of the other groups there was valid criticisms given. They plan to take these into consideration to help make their business even more successful. “This experience greatly reaffirmed the confidence our team feels in our company.” Michael stated, clearly proud of the efforts and hard work that his team has put in thus far.
All four were very happy to hear that the BKTV’s very own Mindy Southern requested to mentor them in their advertising and entrepreneurship journey.