Camille Boiteux prepared for high school track meets with water-proof mascara.

She wanted to be picture-ready for the photographers documenting the competition, and since regular mascara often smears when it comes into contact with sweat, Boiteux thought water-proof mascara was the obvious pick for sporting events.

The only issue was that water-proof mascara can be difficult to remove, even when the wearer is trying to remove it.

Boiteux struggled to effectively remove the water-proof mascara, but she didn’t blame the mascara — it was supposed to be long-lasting, after all. Instead, she identified ineffective makeup removal methods as the problem.

Two forms of makeup remover are currently on the market: cleansing pads (like makeup wipes) and oils (like micellar water). Both forms can be insufficient, leaving makeup behind and irritating the user’s eyes, Boiteux said.

So, Boiteux, now a business administration junior at Cal Poly, set out to develop a better, more effective makeup remover and founded Swish Lash.

Swish Lash is a startup developing a makeup removal product specifically for mascara. A sponge brush doused in a makeup remover solution is attached to a metal clamp so that users can swipe their eyelashes in the same motion used to apply to mascara.

Although Boiteux began workshopping the idea during high school, she didn’t begin developing Swish Lash as a business until 2022 at Startup Marathon.

Startup Marathon is a 54-hour event hosted by the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Club during which student innovators work through the weekend to develop a startup idea. At the event, Boiteux and her co-founder, business administration sophomore Alyson Marzocco, developed the first iterations of the Swish Lash product. Their original prototype ideas included a “PacMan shaped sponge” as well as a clamp similar to an eyelash curler.

Boiteux also participated in the the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC), where Cal Poly students have 90 seconds to pitch their innovative ideas for the chance to win cash prizes. Swish Lash won the audience choice award of $500.

“I was so shocked [(when I won]) because I’d just heard so many great pitches,” Boiteux said. “I was literally on cloud nine.”

Boiteux is now working with a group of industrial manufacturing students to develop a working prototype of her product. She hopes to finish the prototype in time for Innovation Quest (iQ), an annual prototyping and business plan competition hosted by the CIE in April. 

“We’ve been on a positive streak from Startup Marathon to Elevator Pitch, so now we really want to compete in Innovation Quest and figure out where we go from there,” Boiteux said.

She is also working with the CIE’s on-campus Hatchery, which provides Cal Poly students with the resources needed to build a business. The program allows students to attend workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and connects them with seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors.

Boiteux said the mentorship she has received through the Hatchery has been “truly invaluable.”

“There’s nothing like the Hatchery that can truly offer free help,” she said. “The Hatchery, as a whole, is a great network and a great community of motivated people.”

With the help of the Hatchery, Boiteux sees Swish Lash releasing an early prototype and beginning to collect customer feedback within the next year.

Eventually, she sees Swish Lash as the one product on drug store shelves that can effortlessly and effectively remove mascara.

“I just really want to see a product that genuinely makes a difference in taking off mascara for everyone that wears it,” Boiteux said.

Kyle Burton received a cease and desist letter from Wizards of the Coast in 2022 — a letter that prompted the eventual growth of his startup, Card Conjurer.

While in high school, Burton built a website that allowed him to make custom cards for “Magic: The Gathering,” a popular collectable card game. The website grew as Burton continued to add and improve different customization features — until it grew large enough to catch the attention of Wizards of the Coast, the game’s publisher. 

Burton, now a Cal Poly software engineering major, received an email from a Wizards of the Coast representative during Fall Quarter of his junior year. The representative ordered the company’s intellectual property to be removed from Burton’s website.

“It was extremely stressful,” Burton said, “and I immediately came to the Hatchery to find some help.”

The Hatchery is a Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) program that teaches Cal Poly students the fundamentals of building a startup. The program provides students with resources that best fit their needs, including intensive workshops, mentorship and, in Burton’s case, legal counsel. The Hatchery connected Burton with an attorney who provided some insight into intellectual property law and reviewed how Burton could address the cease and desist.

In the end, Burton found that he had two options: remove the parts of the website that included Wizards of the Coast’s intellectual property or take down the website in its entirety.

“And because the site was 99% property owned by Wizards of the Coast, I took it down,” Burton said.

But the website didn’t stay down for long. Luckily, Burton already happened to be working on a remake of the website when he received the cease and desist letter.

He launched a new version of his website within the next month.

Card Conjurer is no longer a “Magic: The Gathering” card customizer — it’s a website where users can craft their own custom game cards.

“It’s very generalized,” Burton said. “It’s not a ‘Pokémon’ card maker or a ‘Magic: The Gathering’ card maker… It’s for someone who wants to design their own card game or make something fun, like throwing their pet into their own custom game card.”

The Card Conjurer website allows users to select a template, then start customizing. They can upload their own images; change the colors of the cards; or edit the style, spacing and size of the text. 

The website is fully functional, but Burton is using the connections he’s built in the Hatchery to turn Card Conjurer into a sustainable business. 

“The Hatchery has helped me grow as an entrepreneur, primarily by forming connections and being a really great place to network,” Burton said. “I’ve been able to get some really great advice from the mentors at the Hatchery regarding monetization.”

The Card Conjurer website is currently free and runs entirely on donations. Burton’s advisors at the Hatchery are helping him identify the best method of monetization for the website. He is currently leaning towards “the freemium route,” which would allow users to continue accessing the website for free and unlock additional features for a small fee.

Burton said he is starting to integrate those paid features into the website. Once the website is fully updated, he said he intends to focus on advertising, leveraging social media and influencer partnerships to drive users to Card Conjurer.

He said he intends to put in the work necessary to make Card Conjurer the new standard for game card customization by scaling the website to include all of the features needed to make a complete card game, then promoting the finished website.

“I want Card Conjurer to be the name that people think of whenever they want to start designing a custom card game,” he said.

ARTIFEX is creating a data processing software that allows architects and designers to input data points and receive automated floor plans. Users can then export that data and use it to inform the next stage of the design process.

The idea for the tool stemmed from research that co-founder Elijah Williams conducted while pursuing a Master of Science in Architecture with Cal Poly. Williams’ original idea was for a hardware device that used a laser to collect measurement data. He brought that idea to the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in 2021 and joined the CIE’s Hatchery, a startup incubator for Cal Poly students.

Around that same time, Anna Baytosh, a Cal Poly Masters in Business Administration student at the time, approached the CIE looking to get involved and learn more about the startup process. The CIE connected her with Williams, and she joined ARTIFEX just in time to apply for the CIE’s Summer Accelerator program.

The Summer Accelerator is a three-month program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to build a business, including $10,000 in seed funding. ARTIFEX was one of the nine startups accepted into the program in 2021.

By the end of the Summer Accelerator, ARTIFEX had successfully raised a small round of pre-seed capital. Baytosh, who had originally planned to leave ARTIFEX after completing the program, joined Williams as an official co-founder and became the startup’s COO.

Following the Summer Accelerator, ARTIFEX joined the CIE’s two-year Incubator program, which is designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. It connects founders with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship, networking events and funding opportunities.

“The Incubator provides a wealth of resources, from accounting, legal, marketing, finance — anything you really need to get your startup off the ground,” Baytosh said. “For us, it was about the Incubator helping us build that structure around what we had already created in the Summer Accelerator.”

Since joining the Incubator, ARTIFEX has pivoted from their original hardware idea to a software solution. They’ve also begun fundraising.

The Incubator has connected ARTIFEX with several fundraising opportunities, including AngelCon, an annual pitch competition hosted by the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC), where tech-driven startups from California’s Central Coast compete to win equity-backed funding.

ARTIFEX participated in AngelCon in 2022, and although they did not raise funding from the competition, Baytosh said it was still “an awesome experience.”

She described the preparation for the competition as a “pitch bootcamp.”

“We were able to hone our pitch and our strategy,” she said. “And we were able to meet more people that we were able to raise funds from later.”

In addition to helping the ARTIFEX co-founders meet prospective investors, the Incubator also introduced them to a community of fellow entrepreneurs.

“I would say, for a venture-backed startup, a network of advisors, investors and fellow founders is absolutely crucial because that’s what’s going to keep you going,” Baytosh said. “Those network connections are going to get you to the next step.”

You’ve probably heard it: 

Local news isn’t what it once was.

Investigative reporting is on its way out.

Newspapers are dead, and the journalism industry is dying.

But journalism, in all its forms, isn’t dying. It’s just changing. Online news is replacing printed newspapers as the industry standard, which is creating a rapid, oversaturated news cycle and changing revenue models.

Journalists are doing their best to keep up with these changes — and many are turning to entrepreneurship to do that.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in the media industry, in recent years, thinking about all of the challenges we’re facing — business models, lack of public trust,” said Kim Bisheff, a lecturer in the Cal Poly Journalism Department and a Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) faculty fellow. “That’s where entrepreneurship comes in. It gives us a different framework for thinking about those challenges.”

Bisheff currently teaches Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship (JOUR 385) at Cal Poly, a course implemented in 2019 by former Cal Poly Journalism Department Chair Mary Glick, who was also a faculty fellow with the CIE. 

Bisheff watches Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship students pitch their ideas to solve big problems in the media industry | Photo by Ruby Wallau

While most of Cal Poly’s journalism courses teach students about journalism as a practice, Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship teaches students about the media industry. Students learn about topics like business models, product management and audience engagement, whereas other journalism courses are focused on building and improving a reporting skillset.

“We talk about ways to innovate both within an existing news organization and as an independent entrepreneur,” Bisheff said. “That kind of thinking really isn’t taught in any other part of the (journalism) curriculum.”

Throughout the course, students create new product and service ideas to solve problems within the media industry. They start the quarter by speaking with the local community to learn “how they feel about news, what challenges they’re facing (and) what barriers there are to them consuming news,” Bisheff said.

Students then form small groups and choose a problem to address. For the rest of the quarter, they work on creating a solution to that problem. 

Kimmi Ahmadi, a student currently taking the course, is working with her group to make news easily accessible with a Google Chrome extension that can summarize news stories. The extension utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to condense longer articles so that readers can consume the content in shorter read times. 

Ahmadi found Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship listed in her major’s course catalog and thought it would be fun to try something new since, as a journalism junior, she had never taken a business class.

Ahmadi and her group mates present their project to a panel of judges | Photo by Ruby Wallau

She was nervous when, on the first day of class, she learned that most of the other students had taken an introductory entrepreneurship course before Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship, but said Bisheff teaches the course so that students can participate regardless of their academic background.

“She makes it literally so easy and clear-cut and is such an optimistic person,” Ahmadi said. As for the course itself, “it’s a lot of ‘Learn by Doing.” 

Students continuously develop their solution throughout the quarter. They build a prototype, then “release it and test it and release it and test it,” Bisheff said. 

Computer engineering senior Alex Johnson, who is also currently taking the course, said this is the first class that has given him an opportunity to build a product from ideation to completion. 

“Almost every other class that I’ve been in, we’ve had projects, but the projects were never products that went from Week One to Week 10,” Johnson said. In Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship, students “really get the full 10 weeks to flesh out this idea — and you’re learning as you do it.”

Johnson and his group are developing what he described as a “digital coffee shop bulletin board” in order to centralize news about local events — especially informal events like house shows or yard sales, which typically rely on word of mouth.

The product is a result of collaboration with students of all different disciplines, Johnson said. Because Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship is open to students of all majors, students are able to collaborate and leverage their different skill sets.

“We all bring different perspectives,” Johnson said. “Having the diverse backgrounds come together is really cool.”

Johnson presents the digital bulletin board that he and his group mates developed throughout the quarter | Photo by Ruby Wallau

At the end of the quarter, Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship students pitch their products and services to a panel of judges. The panel is typically comprised of community members, according to Bisheff. Judges in the past have included leaders from Mustang Media Group, representatives from the CIE and successful media entrepreneurs.

Although that is where the course ends, Bisheff encourages her students to “take their projects beyond the classroom” and pursue opportunities through the Hatchery, an on-campus CIE program that helps Cal Poly students turn their startup ideas into real businesses.

Classes typically have around 20 students, but Bisheff said she expects class size to grow since the Cal Poly Journalism Department recently introduced a new media innovation concentration for journalism majors. 

But regardless of major, Bisheff hopes students from across campus will consider taking her class to gain insight into both the media industry and the entrepreneurial process.

“As their teacher, I hope that students leave this class with a sense of optimism and empowerment,” Bisheff said. “We hear so much about the challenges that we’re facing in the news industry and as consumers of information, but I feel like entrepreneurship offers a positive outlook and empowers people to understand that they have the ability to solve these big problems.”

Thomas Telles first learned about the concept of reverse logistics from a podcast.

Reverse logistics is a supply chain process, sometimes referred to as an “aftermarket supply chain.” Currently, retailers throw away about a quarter of their returns, according to NPR. Reverse logistics would reduce that waste, as retailers would repair, refurbish or recycle returned products for resale.

The concept intrigued Telles, an environmental earth and soil sciences junior at Cal Poly, and became the inspiration for his startup, Returney.

Returney is localizing returns in order to reduce unnecessary waste. When a consumer returns a product, that product often travels cross-country to get back to the manufacturer, according to Telles. Returney would implement local return centers, reducing travel costs and pollution.

With Returney, products would no longer be returned to the manufacturer. They would go to one of the startup’s localized return centers, which would function similarly to consignment or thrift stores.

Telles began developing the startup in 2022 and brought the idea to the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery. The Hatchery is an on-campus program that teaches student entrepreneurs how to develop their startup ideas.

For Telles, the program served as a crash course in entrepreneurship. The Hatchery broke down the startup process into steps that were easily digestible for students with minimal entrepreneurship experience, like Telles.

“The Hatchery is willing to take care of you so you’re not overwhelmed with all the details of starting a business,” Telles said.

The program also helped Telles refine his startup idea. When he first started in the Hatchery, Returney was an abstract concept. With the help of mentors in the Hatchery, called Entrepreneurs in Residence, Telles was able to simplify his idea, making it more feasible. 

“It’s kind of a complicated field, so my idea has shifted completely since I began,” Telles explained. “When I began, it was a very convoluted idea. Now, it’s a pretty simple one, and one that I hope to bring to market sooner rather than later.”

Telles is currently in the market research stages. He is contacting apparel companies to learn about their return processes, as well as consignment and thrift stores to gain insight into the secondhand item market, which Telles said “is skyrocketing”.

By the end of the academic year, Telles hopes to have sufficient industry insight — enough to join the CIE’s Summer Accelerator, an intensive 12-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses, including $10,000 in seed funding.

Telles said he looks forward to growing Returney and normalizing a more sustainable return process, which he said could benefit the environment.

“Reverse logistics is inherently a sustainable model, and so if we (can implement it), then I think that would be very ideal,” Telles said.

Tallyfor is using online automation to ease the process of completing business taxes.

The idea for the startup originated while Peter Wen was working as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) at Xero, an online accounting company. Wen realized much of the work a CPA completed manually could be automated — so he set out to build a product to do just that.

Now, Wen is the co-founder of Tallyfor, a startup he described as “the tax calculation layer for the internet.”

Tallyfor improves online accounting software so that it is able to complete business taxes by moving data from source transactions to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filing.

“Everyone has to do tax returns, right? And it’s actually quite an arduous job,” Wen said. “So what Tallyfor does is help automate (the process).”

Wen began developing Tallyfor in 2018. Three years later, he brought the startup to AngelCon, an annual competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in which tech-driven startups on California’s Central Coast compete to win funding for their businesses.

Tallyfor won the competition and was awarded the top prize of $145,000 in equity-backed funding.

“AngelCon was a lot of fun,” Wen said. “It was really a great way for us to kick off our business.”

Following AngelCon, Tallyfor joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. The program provides participating startups with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship, networking events and funding opportunities.

For Wen, the most valuable part of the Incubator is the community. Through the program, Wen has had the opportunity to connect with his fellow entrepreneurs.

“Being a startup founder, I always say, is a bit lonely,” he said. “It’s always challenging finding like-minded founders and people who support you. Joining the Incubator program was very helpful in finding people to support you in those early stages.”

In early April of 2019, Donald Lee accompanied his wife Christine to a routine ultrasound appointment.

The Lee’s were expecting twins — they were not expecting to spend the following weeks in the hospital.

During the ultrasound appointment, Christine was diagnosed with a short cervix, a condition that can increase the likelihood of preterm birth. She was immediately rushed to a hospital across the street. 

“We never went home after that,” Donald said. 

Christine laid in the hospital with her feet elevated higher than her head for three weeks in an attempt to prevent preterm birth. She eventually gave birth to twin daughters at 24 weeks — about four months earlier than typical.

Premature infants are often born with underdeveloped lungs and immune systems, according to the American Pregnancy Association. Most require medical support in order to survive for the first few weeks of their lives.

The Lee’s spent over 5 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

“I asked a lot of physicians during that time, ‘What could we have done differently to prevent this?’” Donald said. “The answer across the board was the same: There was nothing we could have done.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for Donald. 

With a background in mechanical engineering, he set out to invent a medical device that would prevent preterm births. He began researching and prototyping and, eventually, developed a product that would become the foundation of Novocuff, a maternal healthcare startup working to reduce infant mortality caused by preterm birth.

Donald’s daughters are now three years old. They’re healthy. They go to preschool. They beat the odds.

But not all families are as lucky. Roughly 20 percent of infants born at 24 weeks do not survive, according to an American Medical Association journal.

Novocuff is working to change that.

There are a million deaths worldwide attributed to preterm birth, but 75 percent of those deaths could be prevented by delaying labor, Donald said.

Novocuff’s medical device can extend pregnancy for women at risk of delivering their children prematurely. The silicone device is vaginally inserted and supports the body’s natural anatomy, applying compression to the cervix. It’s also adjustable, so physicians can change the compression as the patient’s body changes throughout the course of the pregnancy.

After developing the device, Donald was unsure how to bring that solution to market — so he reached out to a former colleague, Amelia Degenkolb, who was on the founding team of Alydia Health.

Alydia Health, formerly InPress Technologies, was a startup working to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, or excessive bleeding after giving birth, with their device, the Jada System. Degenkolb was one of the engineers who developed the Jada System.

Alydia Health was acquired by American pharmaceutical company Organon & Co. in 2021 for $240 million.

“It was all over the local news that Alydia was acquired by Organon for $240 million, and I assumed (Degenkolb) would be free,” Donald said. “And so I called her and I asked if she could meet for coffee.”

Donald arrived at Skippers Coffee with a presentation and pitch to convince Degenkolb to help bring Novocuff to market, but Degenkolb only needed to look at one page of Donald’s work before agreeing to join.

She became the CEO of Novocuff, handling the startup’s business relations, fundraising and FDA approval process. Donald became the startup’s official CTO, handling the development of their product.

Degenkolb said she was excited to start fresh with Novocuff and felt like she was “going in eyes wide open” after seven years with Alydia Health. “I  know about a lot of the potential pitfalls and detours that we can now avoid, and I have the right contacts and support to help us succeed in a much quicker way,” she said.

The Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) was a key resource in the success of Alydia Health — so Degenkolb brought Novocuff to the Cal Poly CIE.

“It was a natural fit for us,” Degenkolb said. “I had already been through this process once with (Alydia Health), and so we did it again.”

Novocuff joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program that provides startups with the resources needed for smarter, faster growth. It connects participants with mentors, consultants and potential investors. Alydia Health participated in the same program in its early stages and graduated in 2012.

The Incubator also provides opportunities to earn funding through pitch competitions, like the CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) AngelCon. AngelCon is an annual event where tech-driven startups on the Central Coast compete to win equity-backed funding. Novocuff participated in AngelCon in 2022 and won $70,000 in equity investment.

With that funding, Novocuff is one step closer to accomplishing their goal of saving babies’ lives.

Donald said he hopes to eventually take Novocuff global. The device’s design is purposefully simple so that lower-income nations can utilize the device, even in the absence of a highly trained physician. 

“Globally, there’s about 15 million preterm labor cases,” Donald said. “Our aim is (for) our device to be straightforward enough and simple enough to use globally (so that) we can bring down that millions of deaths significantly.”

AcreCloud is a startup maximizing efficiency on farms by providing farm management software tools to farmers and farm laborers.

The idea for the startup originated when co-founder Elias Cabrera took over his family’s 800-acre pistachio farm and realized the farm was not running as efficiently as it could be. There were no data-tracking systems in place, which made it difficult to make informed decisions about which crops to plant or harvest — so Cabrera, who had a background in mechanical engineering, began to develop a platform to organize work orders.

Cabrera eventually presented the idea to Jim Cogan, who had previously worked in economic development, and together, they set out to build AcreCloud.

AcreCloud technology currently allows users to track work orders and expenses, but will soon expand to include purchasing and payroll, according to Cogan, the startup’s COO.

Shortly after the startup was founded, AcreCloud participated in AngelCon, an annual competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) where tech-driven startups on the Central Coast compete to win equity- backed funding.

AcreCloud won the competition and was awarded $135,000 in equity investment.

Following their win at AngelCon, AcreCloud joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. The program provides participating startups with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship and networking opportunities.

“AngelCon was our first introduction to the Incubator, and we made such great connections with mentors and impressive, high-level folks in software and innovation,” Cogan said. “It was a no-brainer to join the Incubator and get to spend time with those folks.”

Incubator programming also includes monthly peer-to-peer roundtable discussions, which allows entrepreneurs to learn from one another and build community.

“Misery loves company, but so does success,” Cogan said. “You wind up celebrating with (other entrepreneurs) and leveraging each other’s networks. On our in-person days, I spend a lot of time talking with my fellow entrepreneurs.”

Zeste Farms is a startup leveraging vertical farming — the growing of crops in vertical layers, often in a climate controlled environment — to grow leafy greens and herbs.

The idea for the startup originated while co-founder Stan Kaplita realized that existing indoor vertical farming technologies were not being used to their full potential.

“I saw challenges with traditional farming with climate change, water scarcity and land scarcity, and I came to the realization that what can be grown inside will be grown inside,” he said.

Now, Zeste Farms has developed an efficient method of indoor vertical farming that requires lower operating costs and eliminates the “green premium,” or the additional cost of clean technology compared to that with greater greenhouse emissions.

Zeste Farms utilizes their innovation to grow unadulterated produce, which provides consumers with maximum nutrition and maximum flavor.

Early in the startup development process, Zeste Farms got involved with the Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, joining their Incubator. The Incubator is a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses by connecting participating startups with mentors, networking opportunities and resources that facilitate faster, smarter growth.

Kaplita, whose professional background is in engineering, said he joined the Incubator because his professional background led to an emphasis on engineering a product rather than developing a business.

“We were so lopsided as a company when we started out,” Kaplita said. “(The Incubator) pushed us in terms of marketing and sales.”

The Incubator provided Zeste Farms with the resources needed to grow from an idea to a startup. Through the program, Kaplita said he learned how to refine business pitches, market effectively and manage a startup.

“I look at the CIE as a critical resource and support for our company,” he said.

The Incubator has also created several networking opportunities that have been especially valuable to Zeste Farms, according to Kaplita. He was introduced to a business consultant who specializes in biological and agricultural technology who he meets with bi-weekly. The program also put Kaplita in contact with an angel fund that later invested in Zeste Farms.

Kaplita added that he benefits from the Incubator’s frequent guest speakers, who are able to provide different perspectives on the startup development process. Their advice can provide “a different approach to solve a problem,” Kaplita said.

The wealth of resources offered by the Incubator ultimately provide startups with a stability that Kaplita said he is grateful for.

“The CIE can help guide the ship a little bit,” he said. “It’s very approachable, very friendly. I feel very fortunate to have been in this area and to use the resource here.”

Diversity was largely an “untouched subject” on the Cal Poly campus when Zeeshan Khan started as an undergraduate. It was shortly after photographs of a white student in blackface began circulating, a scandal which propelled Cal Poly into the international spotlight and left many traditionally underrepresented students, including Khan, feeling ostracized from the rest of the campus community.

Khan, a computer science undergraduate who was serving on Cal Poly ASI’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee at the time, recognized a lack of sufficient support networks for minority students — so he began building his own network.

Along with two other classmates, Khan founded Color Coded, an on-campus club that provides professional and academic support and resources to minorities and allies in the tech space. The club was especially committed to fostering new opportunities and professional connections for Black and Latinx students. 

“We recognized there was a need for more support, more community, and why not have another place for people to reconnect and feel safe?” Khan said. “We focused on making sure people felt their voices were heard.”

Khan is now the co-founder and CEO of Zoetic Motion, a startup developing a platform for physical therapists to support their patients outside of the clinic. Color Coded influenced the way in which he manages his startup, he said.

Through Color Coded, Khan learned the importance of diverse perspectives. The club taught him that a diverse team can lead to more creative problem-solving since team members from different backgrounds may approach problems differently, he said. 

Zoetic Motion CEO Zeeshan Khan (right) with co-founder Ivet Avalos (left) during the 2021 CIE Summer Accelerator.

“Something I make sure to do — and I know it irritates some people — but I make sure everyone says something before the end of our staff meetings,” Khan said.

This not only ensures that everyone’s voice is heard, but can also lead to more innovative ideas, he said.

Zoetic Motion is not the only startup that benefits from a diverse workforce. Recent studies conducted by McKinsey & Company found that companies with greater diversity enjoy greater financial success.

In 2018, McKinsey examined 1,000 public companies from 12 different countries and found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity were 33% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Similarly, companies with greater gender diversity were 21% more likely to have financial returns above the same median.

“When you have a diverse team, there’s this plethora of perspective, experience and culture,” said Jose Huitron, a lecturer in the Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business (OCOB) and the Director of Student Innovation Programs with the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE).

Diverse teams within the entrepreneurship space can also translate into diversity within the consumer marketplace, according to Huitron.

Agua Bonita, for example, is a startup that sells agua frescas, beverages made with water and fresh fruits that are especially popular in Mexico and Latin America. Traditionally, agua frescas are sold by street vendors, alongside “culturally nuanced food.”

Agua Bonita founder Kayla Castañeda, however, repurposed the tradition, commercializing the product and selling it as a canned beverage. 

“She found a way to take a staple in our Hispanic culture and bring it into the mainstream,” Huitron said. “Kayla’s perspective and point of view enriches the portfolio of the firm that invested in her startup, brings back capital that she can use to impact her community and broadens the aperture of what’s possible for her community.”

Another example of a startup creating greater diversity and inclusivity in the consumer marketplace is Cheekies, a period-wear company leveraging leak-proof technology to provide menstruators with greater comfort while sleeping on their periods.

The startup is founded by women, for women — but because of this, the startup’s founders often run into difficulties when pitching their business to male investors, who can be unfamiliar with the problem they are attempting to solve.

“We have to be very creative in the way that we sell the product to male investors,” said Cheekies co-founder Mariana Inofuentes, who graduated from Cal Poly with an industrial engineering degree in 2022. “It requires a little bit of extra brainstorming because (male investors) may not relate to the problem.”

Cheekies co-founders Mariana Inofuentes (left) and McCall Brinskele (right) after pitching their startup at the CIE’s 2022 Demo Day.

Pitching to female investors is often easier because they are familiar with the discomfort of sleeping on their periods and the lack of effective solutions currently on the market. Rather than explain the problem and solution, Inofuentes and co-founder McCall Brinskele need only explain how their solution is effective.

Brinskele, who is also a Cal Poly graduate student studying engineering management, said working with mentors who share a similar background as their mentee — in Brinskele’s case, women who are familiar with product development, apparel or other aspects of the period-wear industry — can be valuable.

Communication is often easier since the mentor is able to understand their mentee on a more personal level, Brinskele said.

“For a mentor to say, ‘I’ve been where you’ve been and I came out the other side’ is massive,” Brinskele said. “To be able to say, ‘I can achieve this. They came from the same place I did and look the same way I do’ gives people hope, and that’s invaluable in entrepreneurship.”

CIE Student Innovation Outreach Coordinator Anvita Vyas said it is not only important for similar identities as their mentees, but also similar professional backgrounds.

Vyas, currently a business administration junior, is also the founder of Swaay, previously known as Nritya. Swaay is a startup developing a digital platform to connect dancers and choreographers based on emotional intelligence. 

CIE Student Innovation Outreach Coordinator and Swaay founder Anvita Vyas hosting the CIE’s annual Elevator Pitch Competition.

In 2021, Vyas brought Swaay to the CIE Hatchery, an on-campus program that provides students with the resources needed to build a business. The Hatchery connected Vyas to several mentors, all of which she said provided valuable business development advice — but none of which could provide advice specific to the dance industry.

“I really wish there was someone who had been within the dance industry who could have mentored me,” Vyas said. “To speak for the arts or any other industries that don’t have as much presence within the CIE, it would be cool to see pitch competitions or programs for those specific industries.”

Vyas said organizations like the CIE should have a network of diverse mentors in order to provide support to students from across campus and across academic disciplines. If the CIE expanded its network to include mentors from a larger variety of disciplines, it could perhaps foster the growth of startups within those industries, she suggested.

“Entrepreneurship, it’s interdisciplinary,” she said. “It’s tied to everything in many different ways… I think having more mentors from different industries will attract more students to the CIE because the more that you see that entrepreneurship is diverse, the more you’re going to understand that it’s applicable to you.”