Last April, Jonathan Philip and Alex Wakefield, Auburn mechanical engineering seniors, won the Tiger Cage competition where they participated in mentorship sessions throughout the year with Auburn faculty and other business leaders.
Philip and Wakefield won $10,000 in funding and $30,000 in legal assistance for their Parking Grid Technologies business.
Their electrical and software engineering-centered business created an app allowing drivers to locate empty parking spaces.
Both Philip and Wakefield said they believe the competition is a great opportunity for any young entrepreneurs looking to gain experience.
“Just try it," Philip said. "It’s a tough competition, but it’s not something that’s not possible to do with your classwork. Alex and I were both taking 17 and 18 hours respectively.”
“It was really about learning process to see if we could build a good business and that other business leaders saw could be successful,” Wakefield said.
Cole Kinchler, senior in business, was the 2015 Tiger Cage runner-up along with partners Jake Wright and Sharan Kalva for their business, SimplyProse, an editing and writing platform.
Kinchler agrees Tiger Cage was a good opportunity to gain business experience.
“Tiger Cage helps take you from a basic idea, allows you to test it, get feedback and understand if it is something worth pursuing,” Kinchler said. “If you decide it is an idea that should be explored more, Tiger Cage provides you the necessary help to develop a business plan that will contribute to your business' success.”
The SimplyProse team’s success in Tiger Cage motivated the group to enter other competitions such as Alabama Launchpad and the SEC Symposium, according to Kinchler.
Mentorship is a huge component in the preparation for this competition, and Philip speaks highly of his mentorship experience.
“We got paired with an incredible guy, Mark Forchette, and he was so giving in his time to work with us, talk through our PowerPoints and talking to us about how we needed to present this information,” Philip said.
Philip attributes the group's success and its Tiger Cage win to Forchette.
“Without that aspect and without having that interaction with him, it would have been a very different competition,” Philip said. “And I think it would have ended very differently for us, because he was definitely pivotal in our guidance.”
Forchette reached out to the seniors and made sure to check in with them and give them advice, according to Wakefield.
“He was very proactive about reaching out to us and making sure we were following up with him …because he wanted us to succeed and make sure the Tiger Cage had a good competition,” Wakefield said.
Philip also stressed the importance or practice and brevity.
“You can spit out all kinds of information, but that would take an hour. We only had five minutes … we actually spent hours going over individual words in our presentation,” Philip said.
They even received help from family and friends.
“We actually practiced in front of Alex’s wife,” Philip said. “She was great, because she’d give us feedback and encouragement when we needed it.”
While they practiced, the seniors tried not to think about the prestigious panel of judges they’d be facing in the finals, including Shark Tank panelist Kevin Harrington.
“I made a note to myself not to worry about who the panelists were, at least subconsciously, so I wouldn’t psych myself out for any reason,” Philip said.
Wakefield agreed that he tried not to psych himself out because of his audience.
“They’re third party judges. They don’t have any ties to you, and if they hate the idea they’re gonna tell you,” Wakefield said. "So, that’s a little intimidating, but once I was up there I really didn’t look at them any different.”
Despite months of work, the seniors were surprised by their win.
“I remember us saying before we started, ‘It’d be really funny if we won this thing,’ and we brought that up again after we won,” Wakefield said. “We just kind of sat there in the car after the awards when they announced it and laughed like ‘Wow we just did that.'”
The 2016 Tiger Cage finals will be held in April through Auburn’s Entrepreneurship Summit following last week’s launch meeting.
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