MBA Students Excel at Endicott’s ‘3 Day Startup’ Weekend
Larry Gilligan’s co-idea of a subscription-based cocktail delivery service took an important step forward at the Endicott College Angle Center for Entrepreneurship’s “3-Day Startup Weekend.”
BarBac, which was originally initiated through his team’s Master of Business Administration Field Study experience, took home the top prize at the intensive three-day boot camp, during which students and community entrepreneurs gained experiential entrepreneurship training culminating in a pitch competition.
While the boot camp was daunting, Gilligan and his team were prepared thanks to his MBA Field Study with fellow Van Loan School at Endicott College graduate students Mats Sanberg (technology and application development), Connor Costello (operations and project management), and Derek Galante (marketing analysis and go-to-market strategy).
Gilligan and Sanberg were at the boot camp in early November alongside Gilligan’s BarBac co-founder, Everett Roscoe, and fellow MBA student Susan Goniprow, who joined the team for the weekend. Boot camp participants went through an intensive experimental laboratory, including the development of an idea, conducting of initial test markets, creating a go-to-market strategy, and the final pitch delivered to a team of entrepreneurial judges. BarBac went through this process with its prototype, Mungo Mango Margarita.
“They were trying to teach us investors’ time is valuable, so you have to get your pitch out as quick as possible while also making sure they’re interested and want to invest,” Gilligan said. “There definitely were some growing pains there. It was good to get up in front of people, a larger audience and pitch to them. It was a fun weekend. I wasn’t expecting to have fun having my weekend taken away, but it was pretty good.”
Through their MBA Field Study, Gilligan, Sandberg, Costello, and Galante have been working on a comprehensive entrepreneurial startup business plan, including the design of business models, prototyping products, designing products and services, planning multi-year operation models, building go-to-market launch plans, and creating comprehensive financials aimed at obtaining investor funding. They have done extensive research on their target demographics and direct competitors to optimize investment to deliver profitability.
“All four are very independent thinkers,” MBA Dean and Entrepreneurial Team Advisor Rick Maybury said. “They all have an entrepreneurial spirit and a healthy disrespect for authority necessary to create disruptive ideas and to become successful entrepreneurs. When Larry put together his team, I saw their talent and potential to do really good work.”
Thanks to the win, BarBac will receive continued mentoring, new business cards, fast-track entry into Endicott’s “Spark Tank” competition, an information session for the North of Boston Business Plan Competition, and a month-long membership to Workbar.
“They did very well, and they’ve been meeting every week since September,” Entrepreneurship Center Director and assistant professor Deirdre Sartorelli said. “They’ve been grinding every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the FUEL conference room. It’s been fun to watch them.”
Learn more about the Van Loan School at Endicott College MBA program, which is offered full-time in an accelerated 10-month format, through an evening program designed for experienced professionals, online, and in a hybrid format with curriculum in classrooms and online. Locations include Beverly, Boston, and client hosted sites.