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.”

TRIC Robotics is revolutionizing pest control, using ultraviolet light in place of chemical pesticides to help farmers control pests and disease.

“You can think of our solution like a giant Roomba,” said TRIC Robotics founder and CEO Adam Stager. “It’s tractor scale, and it carries these lights up and down the rows to control the pests.”

The idea for TRIC Robotics originated while Stager was pursuing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware. While in school, Stager met United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists who had spent ten years researching ultraviolet light as a substitute for chemical pesticides. 

Stager eventually decided to turn the innovation into a business — but although the research that inspired TRIC Robotics originated in Delaware, Stager realized his startup might be more successful in California.

California is largely recognized as the leading contributor to United States agriculture, producing 75% of the nation’s fruits and nuts, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. 

California also grows 90% of strawberries in the United States, so in 2021, Stager drove across the country to bring TRIC Robotics to West Coast strawberry farms.  

Once in California, Stager discovered the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Incubator, a two year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable, scalable businesses. The Incubator provides participating startups with mentorship, networking opportunities and resources that help facilitate smarter, faster growth.

TRIC Robotics officially joined the Incubator in August 2021.

The Incubator helped Stager grow his professional network after coming to California, he said. The program also connected Stager with pitch competitions, as well as mentors who helped prepare him to compete.

In 2022, TRIC Robotics enjoyed a notable winning streak, earning the Audience Choice Award at the Central Coast Innovation Awards, the Central Coast Economic Forecast and AngelCon.

AngelCon is an annual competition, hosted by the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) where tech-driven Central Coast startups compete to win $100,000 in equity backed funding. 

“AngelCon was a great experience for us,” Stager said. “The Incubator really prepared us so that we could get into AngelCon and be really competitive, and once we got there, the mentors really helped us prepare for a round of funding.”

The Incubator program is also associated with Cal Poly, whose College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) is the international leader in undergraduate agriculture education. Stager said he has leveraged this resource, bringing high-achieving CAFES students onto the TRIC Robotics team.

Stager said participating in the Incubator also introduced him to a community of fellow entrepreneurs, many of which are working in a similar industry. He is able to collaborate and engage with other Incubator participants and learn from their experience. 

“It can be a lonely journey of being an entrepreneur, but being a part of the Incubator not only gives you access to resources, mentors and classes that teach you how to take the next steps in your startup, but it’s also a great forum for communicating with other founders,” he said.

By Miranda Knight

Can computers taste? Cal Poly chemistry graduate Katerina Axelsson says so — and she has the data-backed artificial intelligence (AI) innovation to prove it.

While doing chemistry work at local wineries in college, Axelsson noticed that wine scoring was inconsistent and subjective, quickly seeing a need for more transparency in the wine industry and a better understanding of what consumers really want.

“I saw an opportunity to make the subjective wine scoring process more objective,” she said. “I figured that, instead of the 100-point critic system of wine scoring, the answer was in the chemistry.”

So, Axelsson went straight to the lab, where she spent two years innovatively testing wine as a human would taste it, rather than simply for quality control like a typical lab.

By the end of this, she had gathered a mass of data that needed processing, so she set up a meeting with Alex Dekhtyar, the head of the computer science master’s program. The proposed thirty-minute meeting ended up lasting four hours, landed her a business partner in Dekhtyar and was the start of her entrepreneurial journey.

“Around that time, I joined the HotHouse Summer Accelerator for a sort of similar product idea, a wine tasting kit that educated people about wine,” she said. “After that, I went into the HotHouse Incubator where we started getting data from the recommender deployments. That’s kind of when the wheels started turning.”

Thus, Axelsson pivoted her concept and turned it into Tastry, the technology-driven AI company she is the CEO and founder of today.

“The data we were gathering on consumer preferences was unprecedented and led us to build an insights dashboard, like a software product,” she explained. “Now we’re in the business of not only telling consumers what to buy, but telling retailers what to stock and wineries what to make and where to sell it.”

During Tastry’s two years in the incubator until its 2017 graduation, and for some time after, the team fully dove into B2B technology to vertically integrate into the wine industry. Now, they have released their BottleBird app and have plans to launch “Powered by Tastry” software on e-commerce wine websites to keep in touch with consumers.

But while the startup has a history of upward success, Axelsson says that it hasn’t always been easy to be seemingly “selling a rocket ship when people were only looking for a faster horse.”

“We’re making some pretty big claims,” she said. “To say that we can predict how a product will perform in the market just based on the chemistry is almost not believable. And I couldn’t just say this is faster and better and cheaper than what the industry was already using because there’s nothing out there like it. I had to really gain customer trust.”

However, Axelsson confidently utilizes efficacy tests to show, rather than tell, that there is validity in Tastry’s technology. Not to mention, Tastry has no shortage of customers on the Central Coast.

“San Luis Obispo [County] is the perfect environment for this type of company because we’re directly embedded into the wine industry, with the added benefit of being right next to Cal Poly which has a lot of talent to pull from,” Axelsson noted. “Plus, having access to the CIE helped surround me with an incredible network of like-minded people, mentors and investors.”

With that being said, Axelsson doesn’t plan on moving Tastry out of San Luis Obispo anytime soon —  there’s still so much opportunity to tap into and plenty of local wine for her computers to taste.

You can find out more about Tastry at https://tastry.com/ or learn how we can help you grow your SLOcal business today through our HotHouse Incubator program.

Sidney Collin never saw herself as an entrepreneur. The biomedical engineering graduate hardly expected to start a business and even when she innovated a device for Parkinson’s patients, she simply saw that as another facet of research.

That is until she got involved in CIE programming.

“I have a very engineering-based mind and don’t think like a businessperson,” explained Collin. “I jumped into entrepreneurship without planning to at all, but I got exposed to this whole other world that I didn’t know existed, that I didn’t know I wanted to be a part of or even felt like I would fit into.”

While working on a Cal Poly engineering project, Collin was introduced to local veteran Jack Brill who was dealing with freezing of gait, a Parkinson’s symptom that hinders movement. 

Knowing about extensive research backing audio and visual cues as a way to combat this, Collin created what is now the NextStride, a medical device under her company De Oro Devices that uses lasers and metronomes to prevent freezing of gait. 

After Brill found it successful, he sparked demand for it in a local Parkinson’s support group.

“It was completely unfathomable to me that something so simple and so well known to be effective didn’t exist already,” Collin said. “I realized that there was a much bigger need for a device like this.”

The closest thing to a solution then involved a physical therapist laying painter’s tape on a patient’s home floor as a pathway for them to walk along.

“But that confined them to those specific lines,” she said. “We’re allowing them to not only be able to wake up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom by themselves, but also go to the beach or walk around the block. They can take the cues anywhere.”

To serve the larger community seeking this relief, Collin and her advisor needed funding, so they looked into CIE’s Innovation Quest (IQ). Feeling uncertain about pitching her company, she passed it up in 2017, but got involved the following year.

Her device was immediately met with excitement by CIE leaders, inspiring her to gain business skills in the on-campus Hatchery before officially pitching to investors. Ultimately, De Oro Devices didn’t win — but Collin wasn’t shaken.

Instead, she was pushed to apply for the HotHouse Accelerator and got in.

“I came into that thinking there was no way I could be successful because I didn’t fit the entrepreneurial mold,” Collin recalled about her startup journey’s beginning. “But the CIE offers an incredible amount of support and allows students and super early-stage companies to dream big which is so valuable.”

And that value shows. Collin and co-founder Will Thompson went on to take De Oro Devices through the HotHouse Incubator, launch their medical device on a remarkable timeline, win the Central Coast Angel Conference and secure multiple rounds of investments. 

Now post-incubator, the startup remains based in San Luis Obispo as it expands its already-global reach, grows into new disease states and builds out its product line.

“We’re continuously motivated by our customers’ responses saying, ‘I’ve been able to walk for the first time in years, this is amazing, thank you,” Collin said. “It’s crazy to think that there’s no chance I would’ve pursued anything if it wasn’t for the CIE pushing me to realize that there was a business opportunity here and that I could be the one to do it.”

The Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) doesn’t just want to help businesses launch — we want to help businesses thrive. That’s why joining the HotHouse Incubator program can still be a game changer even if your business is already launched and you feel like you can find success on your own. Here’s how our two-year incubator program helps entrepreneurial ventures prosper at any stage.

Expert Mentorship

You might be thinking, “I managed to get to where I am by myself, so why would I need a mentor now?” Well, one of our incubator startup founders, David Bartolomucci, put it best when he asked, “Why not learn from others’ mistakes first instead of making them yourself?” At the CIE, we simply believe that there’s no reason not to have mentor guidance along your entrepreneurial journey. For this reason, our HotHouse Incubator program offers one-on-one mentorship from Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) expert consultants and Cal Poly alumni to help you celebrate the highs and navigate lows of being a CEO. 

Networking for Growth

Gaining connections is oftentimes the ultimate factor for success and the best way to reach people is, well, through other people (and not just on LinkedIn). Being in the incubator program offers access to mentors, investors, seasoned entrepreneurs, innovative Cal Poly students, local businesses and everyone in between. Being a part of the HotHouse community lands you countless opportunities to expand your reach, expand your team and expand your funding… all things that are incredibly important at any stage in business.

Encouragement and Accountability

While mentorship and networking bring you business growth, they also bring you human connection. According to one of our former incubator program startup founders, Sierra Scolaro, “What’s really nice about having the CIE as a support system is that they’re not just supporting your business idea, they’re supporting you as an entrepreneur.” Being in the program brings you a community of like-minded people who are excited to watch you grow your business as well as your personal self, all while keeping you accountable in reaching your entrepreneurial goals.

“Human Google”

Whether you’re months away from launching or you’ve been in business for years, running a company definitely offers a never-ending level of uncertainty and probably a lot of Google searches. However, incubator company founder Trent Ellingsen calls the HotHouse “human Google” and it makes a great deal of sense. 

Our HotHouse Incubator program allows you to be surrounded by an interdisciplinary and diverse group of people who most likely have an answer to any of your questions (especially the ones that can’t be found with a simple web search). Joining the incubator can relieve you from a ton of uncertainty, confusion and wasted screen time. 

Tangible Resources

Along with all of the benefits from interpersonal connections in the program, the HotHouse Incubator program offers incredible workspace resources. Between the downtown SLO HotHouse and the HotHouse Annex, the CIE’s two off-campus locations, you can gain personal office space, private phone booths, tech-savvy conference rooms, spacious lounge areas, kitchen amenities and even a manufacturing lab for your hands-on innovations.

If you’re ready to take your already launched business to the next level, the CIE is here to help. Learn how your company can thrive with our strategic guidance, #SLOcal business network and energetic workspaces at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/.

The entrepreneurial journey is full of risk, complex challenges and unpredictability, but Aaron Bergh, the founder of Calwise Spirits Co., says that unwavering resilience is what will get a startup through obstacles and on a path toward success.   

Bergh has gone through several Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) programs to grow Calwise into the distillery and tasting room that it is today, encountering several highs and lows along the way. 

Recently, he has met his biggest challenges yet.

“Since I started my business I’ve been very good at predicting things, but the pandemic has turned that all on its head,” Bergh said. “There’s absolutely no way to prepare for what’s going to happen next.”

However, Bergh accepted that instead of preparing for specific market changes and setbacks, all he could do was prepare his business to roll with the punches on a nearly day-to-day basis. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, Calwise was forced to close its doors and Bergh had the heavy burden of laying off his staff. Almost immediately, though, Bergh recognized an opportunity for his distillery.

“I turned my business into something it was never designed to be, which was a hand sanitizer manufacturer,” he said of his temporary pivot. “That allowed me to bring revenue in while a lot of people didn’t have that opportunity. I was able to bring my employees back and build up some funds to move forward and continue to grow my company.” 

As San Luis Obispo began to reopen its economy, Calwise then started to pivot back to business-as-usual but was quickly shot down by the second wave of restrictions on the local business community. Now, Bergh and his team are innovating their practices again by creating outdoor seating for Calwise customers to align with current public health mandates.

But why would he keep pivoting when things could change in an instant? Bergh said it’s just simply what you do as an entrepreneur.

“Having obstacles keeps me on my feet and forces me to constantly have to think and innovate,” he said. “When I’m faced with something tricky that would frankly make a lot of people want to run away and give up, I prefer to rise to the challenge.”

So, while Bergh says he has always been a tenacious problem-solver, going through the CIE HotHouse Accelerator and Incubator programs helped him better understand the need to stay resilient in the startup world.

“As simple as it sounds, the main thing I’ve learned is that everyone has challenges and that you just have to get through it,” he said of working alongside other startups and mentors. “Resilience means being able to survive through whatever is thrown at you and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.”

Today, Bergh says that his team’s resilience has allowed business to go better than he expected it would during these economically-challenging times and that he’s found a silver lining in being able to steadily continue to sell Calwise spirits and cocktails online.

You can learn more about this persevering entrepreneur’s company at http://www.calwisespirits.com/ or find out how the CIE can help your company navigate the turbulent startup journey at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/.

Alex Littlewood didn’t land in San Luis Obispo by chance nor did he grow his startup here out of sheer convenience — in fact, he strategically chose the Central Coast over San Diego and Silicon Valley to do so. 

When Littlewood began building his startup Motoroso in 2014, he was based out of the Bay Area, a place that many would cite as the entrepreneurial epicenter. Upon getting accepted into the Techstars Accelerator, he moved the company to San Diego but decided to leave a year later in 2017.

Then, instead of returning to Silicon Valley, Littlewood found himself en route to San Luis Obispo.

“The decision to move to San Luis Obispo was primarily because I wanted to live here and wanted to build a company here,” Littlewood said. “It’s a place where people are realizing that one of the best ways to build a robust local economy is by supporting and growing entrepreneurship in the area.”

About six months after the move, he joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) HotHouse Incubator to build Motoroso into what is now the first-ever platform for automotive and powersports enthusiasts to seamlessly share, discover and purchase parts for vehicular projects.

“I really, really like what the CIE and SBDC have done [with the program] in bringing everyone from the campus level to the community level all together into a single space where people can collaborate,” he explained. “Having that environment is what really makes entrepreneurship work.”

Now that Motoroso has graduated from the two-year program and officially launched in 2019, though, has Littlewood thought about leaving the area? 

Not a chance.

He said that while so many people get the impression that they should start a company somewhere small then move it to the Bay Area, he “honestly can’t think of a worse decision.” 

“It’s not a conducive place for startups anymore,” Littlewood explained. “There’s less noise in San Luis Obispo with fewer companies, so it’s much harder for startups that are nonsense to hide out in the mess just because they just have the right connections, like in the Bay Area.”

Despite the Central Coast being known for its wine country, beaches and laid-back outdoorsy appeal, Littlewood also sees the professional perks of the area.

“Even though San Luis Obispo is a small startup ecosystem, you have people who are very intelligent and working very hard and they’re all in one central space,” he said. “That makes for a very strong, robust and supportive environment that I personally think is one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

And that’s coming from an entrepreneur who has worked up and down the coast of California, as well as in Detroit and Austin.

Whether it’s due to being in a place that supports his lifestyle, the way the CIE supports his company’s growth or getting the upper hand in growing a business in a non-diluted location, Littlewood makes a good case for why entrepreneurs should not only come to San Luis Obispo, but why they should stay.

If you’re considering keeping it SLOcal with your startup, let us guide you in the right direction. 

Learn more about our startup incubator at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/ or the SLO HotHouse coworking experience for established small businesses, growing startups freelancers and remote workers at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/coworking/.

Find out more about Motoroso at https://www.motoroso.com/.

Entrepreneurship is never a straight shot to success and Pashion Footwear CEO and founder Haley Pavone knows this all too well. 

Pavone began her startup journey as a college student at Cal Poly, swiftly taking her convertible shoe wear idea through several Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) programs. Since launching her startup, the young entrepreneur has tackled countless challenges, from navigating a trade war to combating deceptive advertisements, but continues to see the hardships as opportunities for growth.

“Each challenge and ‘failure’ is a learning experience that makes us that much smarter the next time around,” Pavone said. “I’ve learned just how much we can handle and survive and it’s a lot more than I would have originally thought.”

While her team hasn’t had to pivot their product beyond the scope of its original concept, she says her business has constantly evolved to accommodate outside factors.

One of these factors involved reworking the prices of her company’s products when the trade war with China caused a 10 to 15 percent hike to be placed on their footwear. Pavone explained that this happened with virtually no notice and no timeline on when the penalties will drop, but that her team pushed through by adapting as needed.

However, that wasn’t the CEO’s only financial challenge; Pashion Footwear almost went bankrupt in 2019.

Pavone says that since there is no historical data on what it should cost to make a convertible heel, the Pashion team has to “guesstimate” their costs with traditional heel costs, plus a buffer for their heels’ unique pieces. A mistake in their estimations landed them out of money four months ahead of schedule.

“This was a very scary time for our business, as we had essentially 30 days to raise over a million dollars,” the CEO said. “Luckily, I was able to keep my head down and grind through dozens of investor meetings and successfully raised the money on essentially the last day before bankruptcy.”

Getting through a high-pressure situation like that has given the now 24-year-old a taste of resiliency that is helping her get through the current economic downturn, which is affecting Pashion Footwear’s supply chains, market advances and investor funding.

And as if finances weren’t enough to tackle, Pavone has even had to deal with competitors putting out fraudulent advertisements masquerading as her company to steal website traffic and attempt to benefit from the brand loyalty and awareness her team has built for over three years.

Despite the endless complications of running a company, Pavone and her team have continued to bounce back by learning from mistakes and seeking entrepreneurial guidance.

“The main thing I’ve learned through CIE programs is that every entrepreneur and startup, with no exception, has had to navigate some kind of ‘failure’ and obstacles in the journey to becoming successful,” she said. “Being able to network with our entrepreneurs when problems arise to collaborate on solutions is extremely beneficial, even if for nothing else than to know you aren’t alone.”

From the team’s strong pursuit toward success, there is a silver lining in the struggles they have faced.

Now in 2020, Pashion Footwear’s monthly revenue has grown roughly 346 percent since the beginning of the year and Pavone has been able to keep her full-time team employed after obtaining a Paycheck Protection Program loan with guidance from the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center. 

These accomplishments are keeping the Pashion team optimistic about dealing with future hindrances and celebrating the successes yet to come, like launching an entirely new line of products in July — pending any pandemic-based delays, of course.

To learn more about Pashion Footwear and keep up with their next launch, head to https://pashionfootwear.com/.