The Student Business Pitch Competition featured cash prizes for student businesses to help continue to grow their visions. Photo conributed

After the fall of Bitwise nearly one year ago, Fresno’s tech education, entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem took a palpable hit.

The second-annual Student Business Pitch Competition hosted by Quiq Labs on May 21 hoped to once again shine the light of entrepreneurship and business development in the Valley. This time, the focus is on student entrepreneurs competing to see who has the most viable ideas.

Quiq Labs specializes in after-school education programs. Featuring one of its newest tools — rePo, or reSource Portal — the company’s founders boast a strong background in software development. Since the opening of the Phillip J. Patiño School of Entrepreneurship in 2015, Curlen Phipps and Damon Thomas have taught students both at the school and at their newly completed Factory 41 space – formerly the Bitwise South Stadium off Ventura Street in Downtown Fresno.

The first pitch

Last year marked the inaugural Student Business Pitch Competition at Manchester Mall. Thomas said the first year was kept somewhat quiet, as the duo tested the waters of what it would take to host a pitch competition for students at Patiño High School.

“With this being an entrepreneurship high school, one of the things that they, years later, had to do was find their own pitch competitions to join,” Thomas said. “We started thinking, ‘well, that’s kind of hard and some of them are out of the city. Why don’t we host one?’”

Last year’s competition was a success, with student entrepreneurs from the junior class at the high school competing with others for prize money.

Even students who were not competing were able to set up booths to receive constructive feedback from the public and judges, and were given the opportunity to get their pitches into the eyes of potential investors attending the competition.

“I think it was a win-win for everybody even if they didn’t get up on the stage,” Phipps said.

After the competition, however, Thomas and Phipps realized that many of the students did not know how to feasibly use their winnings to promote their businesses.

Enter the Quiq Labs Hero Academy.

Through the Academy, young entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to not only receive professional guidance in the development of their businesses, but also a constructive environment that offered not only business and tech advice, but also a physical workspace, Wi-Fi and, in the future, the opportunity to host business experts to help guide future entrepreneurs.

“We’d do some courses here and there, or subject matter experts we could bring in to help them incubate their businesses,” Thomas said.

The future of Quiq Labs

Similar to the inaugural event, this year, many of the student competitors pitched businesses that rely heavily on technology — something the owners of Quiq Labs have a specific background in.

Phipps and Thomas both said that the continued expansion of technology makes creating a business increasingly accessible.

“Especially nowadays with all of this technology, it isn’t that hard to start a business,” Phipps said. “The technicalities of starting a business are not that hard.”

Phipps said the ease of starting a business differs from starting a successful business that solves a direct need. That’s why they hope to begin Marketing Quiq Labs and the Hero Academy to other local businesses and nonprofit organizations who could help support the young entrepreneurs.

Patiño High School senior Luke Gomez, who participated in last year’s competition, has gone on to establish his own business — Apollo Portal. He helps current and incoming students by spreading his knowledge and experience through workshops for younger children.

Despite his age, Gomez, 17, is well versed in the business world, having started a custom sneaker business, LKG Customs, when he was 12 years old.

“Both from the student perspective and from the business aspect…if I’d never gone to Patiño [High School] or if I’d never met Damon and Phipps, I would have never been given this kind of opportunity,” Gomez said. “For all of our young people to be exposed to rooms and being put in areas like this where they have that level of, not just trust, but understanding…I thought it was amazing being able to share not just our knowledge but everything that we’ve been working on.”

Gomez added that his team in this year’s competition will be pitching a project two years in the making.

Thomas said they hope that through partner businesses, angel investors and other donors, they will be able to expand their facilities to include additional 3D printers, computers and other equipment to help continue to build the Quiq Labs model.

“It’s called ‘Hero Academy’ for a reason; our goal is to put more heroes on the street,” Thomas said. “Imagine a facility where people are coming in to be innovative, be creative, be thought leaders and be around all of that creativity.”

That thought process also resonates with Gomez.

“One thing we like to instill is the fact that you can ask a question and you will get an answer; the first thing you have to do is ask the question,” Gomez said. “Just asking for help is a big thing, but all of our students here understand that collaborating and working together with people that are like minded is going to elevate your businesses.”