St. Charles high school student-entrepreneurs win big at annual Final Pitch Night event

Teams of St. Charles North and East high school students pitched their business ideas to a panel of local business owners during District 303′s fifth annual Final Pitch Night.

The student-entrepreneurs were vying for the largest cut of the $10,000 in total funding to be awarded to further their startup businesses.

Four teams of students, two from St. Charles East High School and two from St. Charles North High School, pitched their products to a panel of five successful, local entrepreneurs, in front of a crowd of about 70 people at St. Charles North High School’s auditorium Tuesday night.

The first place winner, and recipient of a $4,000 check was the BagBros team, who created a reusable liner for athletic bags to keep them smelling fresh.

St. Charles East High School students and BagBros founders Anthony Iori, Jack Borri, Justin Smith and Jake Vrankovich worked all year on their design, business model and pitch in the Incubator class. Borri is a senior, and the other three are juniors.

BagBros are removable and machine washable bag liners that come in different sizes for different types of bags. During their pitch, Iori described BagBro as a revolutionary new product that prevents odor inside athletic bags.

The BagBros team asked the potential investors for $4,000 to use for materials and advertising. The group said they would use the money to look into switching from Velcro to zippers to attach the liner’s layers.

In second place, securing $3,000 in funding, was the Last Dropz team, consisting of St. Charles East High School students Olivia Sanfillippo, Alden Van Beest and Jack Smith. Last Dropz is a replacement cap for shower product bottles that allows consumers to utilize their products down to the last drop.

The winner of third place and $2,000 was the team Pick N’ Go, consisting of St. Charles North High School students Lauren Balster, Caden Johnson and Chase Bettini. Pick N’ Go is food-storage locker system for restaurants that heats or cools the food until it is picked up by the customer or delivery driver.

The team that took fourth place, winning $1,000, was Odd Jobs, consisting of St. Charles North High School’s Guy DeRosa, Jeff Rothenburg and Zoe Ulaszek. Odd Jobs is a matchmaking site that connects high school students looking for work with community members who need help with odd-jobs.

The teams were comprised of students in the Incubator classes. INCubatoredu is a full-year course in entrepreneurship for high school students, in which students develop their own product or service startup.

The course was created by Uncharted Learning, a national entrepreneurial education company out of Barrington. Uncharted Learning also creates entrepreneurship curriculums for elementary and middle school students, as well as for educators.

School District 303 business education teachers Mike Horn and Shannon Stone have been teaching the Incubator classes at North and East high schools, respectively, since 2018 when the course was introduced. Students in grades 10-12 can take the class.

Stone said the classes start each year with students identifying a problem they want to solve, and form groups accordingly. They then spend the school year working to create their businesses, talking to potential customers and hosting surveys and focus groups.

Each team is paired with a mentor, who is business leader in the community. The mentors are volunteers who meet with their teams once a week throughout the school year, providing guidance and business connections to get the students’ ideas off the ground.

Superintendent Paul Gordon said the Incubator program is a really cool opportunity for students to share their ideas and their own way of thinking.

“This is what education really should be about…failing,” Gordon said at the event. “Failing fast, failing forward, as quickly as humanly possible to figure out, and be able to solve problems. That’s what work and school is all about, and that’s what you are doing.”

The panel of business owners watched the presentations, and engaged the teams in follow-up questions after each pitch. After all four teams presented their pitches, they left the stage to deliberate.

After receiving their check, Iori, Smith and Vrankovich, who will be seniors next year, said they plan to use the $4,000 to grow BagBros in the Accelerator class next year, which is the next level of Uncharted Learning’s entrepreneurship courses.

The team said they hope to bring BagBros to the market by second semester next school year.

BagBros mentor Abraham Marshal is the owner of Always Faithful Dog Training. Marshal said entrepreneurship, like dog training, is all about energy, and the importance of being calm and confident, even when you have to pivot.

“If you bring calm, confident energy, you’re going to find that a lot people want to get behind you as a leader,” Marshal said.