Pitch winner Austin Crouse.

Perfectly pitched

Horn Program in Entrepreneurship announces winner of first video competition

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9:29 a.m., May 8, 2013--Austin Crouse, a University of Delaware mechanical engineering major, took home the top prize of $1,000 in the Horn Program in Entrepreneurship’s first entrepreneurial video pitch competition, “Perfect Pitch,” with his video for Rapid Print, a 3D part and component printing business.

“This prize money will allow me to further develop my 3D printing service by allowing me to purchase another 3D printer and a filament extruder to recycle plastic for printing,” said Crouse of his winnings. “The Horn Program has played such a key role in developing all of my ideas and I am very fortunate to have access to such a huge community of entrepreneurs I couldn't find anywhere else."

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Crouse was among a crowd of students who gathered on Friday, April 26, for a live screening of videos submitted to the competition, which called for students to think of an original business idea and create a video that best described that business concept to its target audience of investors, potential partners or future customers.

Effectiveness of the “Perfect Pitch” hinged on the perceived value of the product or service being pitched, the vision of its creators and the tone of the pitch.

Crouse’s video made it to the top after three voting segments: “likes” for each uploaded video on the Horn Program’s Facebook page, scores from a panel of judges and the opportunity for the audience to pick their favorite video.

Other teams that submitted a “Perfect Pitch” included:

  • Coffee Zag, led by Brandon White;
  • SparkED, led by William Kashdan;
  • STAK, led by Scott Tian and Aarin Kester; and
  • Thread-Net, led by Jiancheng Yang, Assem Khalik, Carlos Pereira, Adam Bennet and Tony Angelone

The judging panel included Jill Panté, assistant director of the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics satellite Career Services Center; Nico Carver, assistant librarian in the Student Multimedia Design Center and a multimedia enthusiast; and Mona A. Parikh, founder and managing partner of Parikh Law and managing director of Start It Up Delaware and The coIN Loft.

To watch each of the five videos, visit the Horn Program’s Facebook page.

 

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