Sophia Cassidy, a Boston College Demo Day organizer and CSOM ’23, said this year’s Demo Day featured the most selective group of student-founded companies to date.
“Four months ago in December, we had 37 student-founded companies apply for 12 spots in our program,” Cassidy said.
The Edmund H. Shea, Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship in the Carroll School of Management annually oversees a nine-week program for student entrepreneurs at BC. As part of the program, Cassidy said the teams receive $1,500 in equity seed funding, one-on-one mentorship from industry leaders, and attend weekly workshops. At the end of the nine weeks, the students pitch their companies at Demo Day.
To start off the event, Alex DiBlasi, CSOM ’23, and Nilesh Mukherji, a junior at NYU, pitched their business MDFiTech, which they said is a hedge fund company for investors to generate returns correlated to market conditions by focusing on risk avoidance and capital preservation.
“Our fund has two core competencies,” Mukherji said. “The first is our trade packages, our unique way of layering equities and options to provide us with exposure asymmetric risk … our second core competency is our software … [which] allows us to scan dozens, if not hundreds, of stocks instantaneously, and figure out where those trade packages would best be executed.”
Following MDFiTech, Nathan French, CSOM ’24, pitched his dining hall app Eagle Analytics, which features wait times, menu items, nutritional information, status updates, and more.
“In my operations management class this semester, I learned the importance of having readily available, pre-decisional information,” French said. “The name of the game today is data driven analytics, and this is what Eagle Analytics is founded on, whether that be consumer or business facing.”
Julia Burdsall, CSOM ’25, and James O’Malley, CSOM ’25, created fello—a streamlined note-taking platform that allows users to keep track of contacts and people they meet.
Kevin Koh, CSOM ’24, said the inspiration for his startup Cross Check came from his personal need for an automated scheduling system that ensures that users never miss an assignment.
“Sometimes, professors always put up the quizzes late or sometimes an assignment, you just don’t see it,” Koh said. “That’s why Cross Check automatically refreshes and checks daily, or multiple times a day, to make sure you never miss an assignment.”
In the age of social media, users have trouble identifying the products they are interested in, according to Isabelle Bauer, CSOM ’22. Bauer, alongside Jean Ng, CSOM ’22, created VYBE—a platform that creates an authentic shopping experience where users can share their favorite items in a consolidated list, simplifying the shopping experience.
“We envision a business model that supports consumer to consumer relationships where people who successfully recommend products to their peers are rewarded,” Bauer said.
Scott Holmes, CSOM ’24, and Jack Winslow, MCAS ’24, also created a platform to enhance the shopping experience. Holmes said the market for sneakers is becoming increasingly competitive, resulting in expensive resale prices. To combat this, Holmes and Winslow founded Sneakers Made Simple—a free, simple platform that organizes shoe release dates into a calendar, ensuring that buyers never miss a purchase.
SpotDrop, an app Arthur Brenninkmeijer, CSOM ’22, and Jack McClelland, MCAS ’22, developed, connects food hot spots and friends together, Brenninkmeijer said. On the app, users can recommend their favorite restaurants to each other, creating a more enjoyable and effective dining experience.
According to Ivan Lubyanitskiy, CSOM ’25, European companies have trouble entering the U.S. market. With the use of AdZen, these companies receive security consulting at a low cost.
“All AdZen team members live, work, and see the world the way that U.S. consumers [do],” Lubyanitskiy said. “We understand our target audience, because we are the target audience.”
Hailey Wilcox, CSOM ’23, said the recent development of NFTs—non-fungible tokens—and NFT portfolios has sparked confusion in determining their value. Wilcox and Jack Moffatt, MCAS ’23, founded Defi-Able—a platform which appraises NFT portfolios.
“Right now, we’re leading the charge in the NFT space trying to develop software that accurately projects price trends, market trends, collection data, [and] collection validity,” Moffat said.
Jay Wadhwa, CSOM ’24; Colin Nichols, CSOM ’24; Hans Dewitte, CSOM ’24; Jorge Dickens, CSOM ’24; and William Sievewright, MCAS ’24 banded together to found Split, which is an app that simplifies paying your friends back.
“When you go out, Split will pay for your bill, and all you gotta do is invite your friends, and after that, they have 24 hours to accept the invitation and simply select what they owe,” Nichols said.
Jack McConnell, CSOM ’24, told a personal anecdote about a package being stolen off his porch, which led him to create KATCH. KATCH is an insulated lockbox that secures your packages with a keypad.
“Equipped with a one way door located on top of the box, KATCH is hassle free and easy to use for any delivery service,” McConnell said.
To close out the event, Rhett Somers, CSOM ’23, and Jack Russell, MCAS ’23, pitched MCEE—an interactive music platform that allows users to select songs to play at an event.
“MCEE will allow people to crowdsource music on a common cue,” Somers said. “Simply put, we want to get rid of the DJ and give the power to the people when it comes to the music being played. Users will be able to instantaneously request their own songs which will then be subject to voting by everyone else at the party.”
Correction (4/12/22, 9:44 a.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Sophia Cassidy’s graduation year. That error has been corrected.
Featured Image by Chris Ticas / For the Heights
