What do the companies WhatsApp, Uber, Instagram, Pinterest and Venmo have in common? They were all born out of America’s Great Recession that began in 2008. In fact, even the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) itself emerged in 2010 amid the massive economic downturn.

While a hit to the economy isn’t something to be celebrated, one thing is for certain: when challenges arise, so do opportunities to innovate. 

As we entered an unprecedented pandemic, many areas of life became ripe for innovation, like health technology, food production, logistics and coordination, and at-home social entertainment, according to Forbes. However, there’s no limit on which industries are due for an entrepreneurial upgrade — nor on when they’re due for it.

“There will never be a ‘best time’ to take your ideas to the next level,” says David Bartolomucci, co-founder and CEO of incubator company Roopairs. “Life doesn’t stop for you because you want to start a business.”

However, Charlotte Maumus, the co-founder and CEO of incubator company memwris, says that making sure you have a plan is a best practice, as diving into the startup world without one will hinder your success. 

That’s where the CIE comes in.

The CIE’s goal is to give the San Luis Obispo community the opportunity and support to turn their problem-solving ideas into viable companies from the get-go, rather than leaving people to navigate the startup journey alone. 

One of the ways the CIE does so is through its two-year startup incubator, a program that has helped launch several startups, ranging from an innovative fashion-tech company to the first multi-cue retrofit device that uses visual and auditory cues to help overcome freezing of gait. 

“Having support is essential to building confidence and keeping the momentum going,” says Haley Pavone, CEO and founder of graduated incubator startup Pashion Footwear. “The resources, mentors and funding that come along with the incubator program will propel your business to the next level.” 

While it may not seem ideal to launch a startup during an economic downturn or global pandemic, innovation and entrepreneurship have always been rooted in problem-solving and there is no better time for that than times of need like now.

“You could be 16, 20, 50, 85, employed, unemployed, in a family, single,” Pavone says of being an entrepreneur. “We can’t control when inspiration strikes, but we can control what we do with it.”

And no matter the circumstances, the CIE is prepared to help you take control when that inspiration does strike so that your ideas can help make a real-world impact now. Learn more about how we’ll do so at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/.

Sierra Scolaro went from working on a senior project while finishing her undergraduate degree to becoming a CEO in one year.

What got her there? The HotHouse Summer Accelerator. 

“When we started at the beginning of the summer, we were just three people with an idea and a really not-so-great prototype,” Scolaro, CEO of Wayve, Inc., said. “Going through the accelerator program with all of the mentorship, the dedicated office space and the $10,000 gift really propelled us forward.”

The Wayve team was able to utilize their $10,000 in startup funding from the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) to prototype and patent their idea of a reusable water bottle that allows for filtered water from any spout.

While the business-development side of the program is what directly helped Wayve grow this idea into a company, she also believes the atmosphere of the HotHouse made the summer even more impactful.

“The best thing about the accelerator has to be the community,” the business entrepreneurship graduate said. “When you’re surrounded by all of that energy and other people working on their passions, it makes you all the more excited to pursue your own.”

Scolaro is grateful that she still has the support and motivation she needs to continue advancing her startup since graduating from the accelerator and joining the CIE’s two-year incubator.

“Now that we’re in the incubator program, it’s definitely not as much hand holding as the accelerator, but it’s not like all the support just disappeared,” she explained. “Working out of the HotHouse Annex, surrounded by other entrepreneurs, really provides an energy to keep the momentum going.”

Scolaro says her team really values the mentors, funding opportunities and network of helpful people they have now, but notes that a lot of these resources were first gained through the HotHouse Accelerator. That alone, she said, is enough of a reason to apply for the program.

Plus, she truly loves that the program allowed her to be an entrepreneur.

“I want to enjoy life and I want to enjoy work and I don’t want there to be a distinct separation between the two,” she said. “If I have the opportunity to create that for other people as well, to employ someone who loves what they do and feels like they’re contributing to an overall larger mission for the world, I would love to.”

So, to anyone considering taking their innovative ideas to the next level and building their business community, Scolaro has just one bit of advice for Cal Poly’s aspiring entrepreneurs.

“The HotHouse Summer Accelerator had to be one of the best summers of my life,” she said. “If you’re on the fence, just do it. There’s nothing to lose.” 

Take the leap, launch your dream business, and spend your summer in San Luis Obispo with the HotHouse Summer Accelerator. Find out more and apply for the program at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-accelerator/. 

Trent Ellingsen, the CEO and co-founder of Atlas Alpha Inc., has created Board Game Atlas, a website that gives people all of the information they could need about board gaming.

“There are 37,000 board games on the site,” Ellingsen said. “You can find out all the information about them, like how many players they allow, how long the game takes, the description, user reviews, videos and the best prices.”

To begin the process of growing his company, Ellingsen joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Incubator program in November of 2018. His site initially had about 80 users at the time of its beta launch; now, after over a year in the incubator program and with the acquisition of a competitor, Board Game Atlas has about 54,000 users. 

Although he is a Cal Poly alumni, Ellingsen didn’t join the incubator program until years after graduating. In fact, he found the CIE through the power of networking.

“I found the incubator program, not because I had known about the HotHouse when I went to Cal Poly, but because a member of the HotHouse contacted me about working for his company,” he said. “I wasn’t interested in his company, but about a year later when I started my own, I remembered that it existed, so I applied and got in.”

For Ellingsen, connections are what got him to the incubator, and connections are a big part of why he’s loved working in the HotHouse.

“I think the best part of the incubator program are just the interactions with everybody,” he explained. “There’s different companies working on different things and at different stages, so it’s motivating. [It] makes me feel like I’m not coming to work by myself and on my own thing, but that I’m part of a bigger community and that I can grow friendships and relationships with the people around me.”

Not only has Ellingsen been able to grow his network since starting his startup journey in the incubator program, but the company itself has grown in size and success. 

By buying out a competing board game-centered site, he was able to add in more content to Board Game Atlas, grow the site’s user base and increase revenue. After taking on his company alone for some time, his team now consists of a co-founder and two part-time contractors.

While Ellingsen puts in the hard work to run his business, he credits some success to the CIE’s mentorship and consulting, as well as to the support of the San Luis Obispo community.

“If there’s a startup that’s wanting to get involved in the CIE, whatever stage you’re at, I think it’s definitely worth doing,” he said. “I think it’s worth building something here with different people who are starting companies. The community and the HotHouse are really supportive and it is a great way to get consultants and other advice in how to grow a company.”

If you’re feeling like it’s time to take advantage of all of the business services that the CIE HotHouse Incubator offers, why wait to apply. Start the journey to launching your best business at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/.

In 2014, Josh Hirahara, then-senior at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, decided to jump into the entrepreneurial world. Within a year, he found himself immersed in his startup idea: a platform to connect for-sale-by-owner vehicle sellers and qualified buyers.

Hirahara began his journey by pitching his idea at Cal Poly Entrepreneurs’ Startup Weekend, later joining the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery program. Post-graduation, he continued to grow his idea into a functioning company, Boost Acquisition, through the summer-long HotHouse Accelerator program and two-year incubator program. 

“It was my senior year when I was getting into the entrepreneurship stuff, so I was late to the game,” explained Hirahara. “It’s been about five years since graduating and going through that program, but I left the area and my close CIE involvement about two years ago.”

Within those two years, Hirahara moved his business’s base to Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as opened an office in San Diego, California. Although far removed from San Luis Obispo, Hirahara still has connections from his CIE days.

“I’m still close to a lot of the people that I went through the CIE programs with and still keep in touch with people who run the programs,” Hirahara said. “I’m also partnered up with some older Cal Poly alumni and I consider us the founding group when I pitch our company now.”

Not only did Hirahara’s connections from the beginning stages of his career last, but so did the knowledge he gained from the programs.

“I was an industrial technology major, so I had some business background but knew nothing about entrepreneurship coming in,” he said. “It was great being able to go through the successive programs because I was advancing more than I could have by trying to learn everything on my own.”

Hirahara has now gone from learning the basics of the business model canvas to employing over 20 people at Boost Acquisition. His company is currently running market maker technology that connects in-market sellers with potential buyers online and in real-time. 

“We’re growing and it’s a long journey with a lot of pivots,” he expressed. “But it’s awesome seeing people want your product and pay you for it, making enough revenue to grow and hire more employees, and having a clear outlook on your goals for your company.”

While Hirahara and his team put in the work, he attributes the base of his growing company to the support and resources of the CIE, no matter how far he is now from the area it all began.

To read more about Josh Hirahara’s startup, visit https://www.boostacquisition.com/home.html.

See how you could be the next startup to grow with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s support at https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/#launch.

The digital world has revolutionized the way people from many industries do their jobs. Kristen Hazard, CEO of Wildnote Inc., a Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) incubating company, realized that biologists, botanists, archeologists and other scientists still used primarily pen and paper and largely missed out on the benefits of digital tools. This observation inspired her to launch Wildnote Inc., a mission-driven organization focused on enhancing and protecting natural resources by building the best-in-class, go-to digital platform for collecting, managing and reporting environmental data.

A typical day for biologists and other scientists conducting field work demands that they record data using pen and paper on the scene and then later manually transcribe their notes into a clunky PDF or Word document to send to a project manager. This transcribing can be tedious busy work after a long day on the field, but also leaves room for error.

Wildnote takes away the need for manual transcription, saving people time and allowing for consistent, real-time data across a team.

“This is a classic paper to digital play,” Hazard said. “It basically means we are revolutionizing the process of collecting, managing and reporting this kind of data.”

Utilizing the technology leads to higher efficiency, higher accuracy and the exact same type of information from each person out in the field. When the project manager gets the data, they are working in a web app. This means they can go to a photo gallery, look at the different data collected from a single spot and export that data.

Wildnote’s mission to protect and enhance natural resources doesn’t stop at creating digital solutions for biologists: the company is a registered B Corporation and a member of the 1% for the Planet program, which means Wildnote donates one percent of gross revenue to environmental organizations.

“If you have a business in San Luis Obispo, you aren’t doing it because housing is cheap, you’re here because of the nature,” Hazard said. “We have clean air, clean water, so why not keep giving back to the local natural resources in a simple way like becoming a member of 1% for the Planet.”

Wildnote started their entrepreneurial journey in San Luis Obispo with the Small Business Development Center, hosted by the CIE, and utilizing the free consulting available. The team then entered the incubator program, a two-year-long program open to community members and Cal Poly students alike.

“We found out that the CIE allows community companies,” Hazard said. “I like to call it the old folks incubator or the late bloomer incubator.”

The modern office space in downtown San Luis Obispo, the support of mentors and consultants, and the CIE’s creative, can-do energy are some of the Wildnote team’s favorite benefits. Access to investors and learning unfamiliar skills gave them the boost they needed to grow into the company they are today.

“I get a lot of people who come to me about launching a startup,” Hazard said. “The first thing I always say is to either apply for the SBDC or incubator program. If you can get in, you are immediately given all of these resources you need to grow the company.”

If your community startup is interested in receiving office space, gaining mentorship and joining a vibrant, energetic community of like-minded entrepreneurs, visit https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/ and explore the tools that empowered Wildnote to revolutionize their industry.

By: Lauren Arendt

Electric vehicles (EV) are taking the world by storm. NeoCharge, an incubating company in the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), is working to provide better-charging solutions for residential EV owners. NeoCharge CEO Spencer Harrison and CTO Akhil Veluru designed their first product, a smart adapter for EV’s at home, to save EV owners time and money, ultimately making residential EV ownership more practical and accessible.

“As an [electric vehicle] owner, level two charging is crucial,” Harrison said. “Our product gives you the fastest way to get the affordable charging you need at home.”

The team says their residential focus is was sets them apart in the EV world. They focus on how people charge their EV’s at home, what that experience looks like and how to make it as seamless as coming home and charging a cellphone or laptop overnight.

“Whatever way we can make [charging EV’s] as seamless and convenient as possible,” Veluru said. “That’s really what our goal is.”

NeoCharge developed the first iteration of their product and currently allows customers to sign up for beta testing. They plan to make tweaks and add features based on customer feedback. WiFi functionality and software that lets customers choose whether they want to use renewable energy to charge their EV’s are on the short list of features they are already looking to add in the second round.

To prepare for manufacturing and the necessary safety testing preceding it, the NeoCharge team is in search of funds.

Harrison and Veluru didn’t get to where they are today overnight. They started their entrepreneurial journey alongside the CIE as a part of the hatchery program, an entrepreneurial epicenter on the Cal Poly campus where interdisciplinary groups of students congregate to solidify ideas, form teams and receive the early mentorship and guidance they need.

“There are tons of people to reach out to and tons of connections who can help you with anything that you need help in,” Harrison said. We’re new to this so getting help from other people is a huge thing that the CIE can provide.”

From the hatchery, the NeoCharge team entered the 13-week-long summer HotHouse accelerator program. Here, they not only received seed funding, but a network of peers, seasoned mentors and industry connections to get their company off the ground.

Today, NeoCharge can be found in the CIE HotHouse as a part of the two-year-long incubator program supported by mentorship and the vibrant CIE community.

“Definitely consider the CIE Incubator program,” Veluru said. “It’s a great way to get off the ground, especially if you’re new to running a startup. I didn’t know anything about running a startup when I first came here and I have learned a lot.”

You can learn more about the products offered by NeoCharge and even sign up to be a beta tester at www.getneocharge.com. 

By: Lauren Arendt

Imagine feeling like you can’t move a muscle; as if your feet are glued to the floor. This is what freezing of gait feels like, one of the most common and debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.

The CIE Incubator company De Oro Devices is dedicated to improving the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease and their first product is a device designed to manage freezing of gait.

“Freezing of gait is an incredibly debilitating symptom,” De Oro Devices Founder and biomedical engineering senior at Cal Poly Sidney Collin said. “It creates a lot of anxiety, creates fear and anxiety and is the leading cause of falls.”

Freezing of gait is caused by a lack of communication between the brain and the body. Collin found, however, that research shows this communication can be jump started using a series of audio and visual cues. This is what inspired the De Oro Devices product designed to counteract freezing of gait.

“We put the most effective audio and visual cues, put them into a small, portable device that fits onto any cane or walker and allow someone to regain movement and overcome freezing of gait episodes wherever they are,” Collin said.

The team has developed a prototype of the product that has already made a difference in people’s lives. It will be the least expensive and most portable device on the market designed to mitigate freezing of gait and the anxiety that comes with it.

“My intention as a person is to use the technology in the world to improve people’s quality of life and this company is an amazing way for me to do that,” Collin said. “Success for us is making products that have a real impact on people’s quality of life.”

De Oro Devices got their start in the Hatchery in Spring 2018. After building a team and solidifying their idea in the on-campus space, the company applied for the accelerator program and were admitted into the Summer 2018 class. After ten weeks of intensive preparation, De Oro Devices launched at Demo Day and continued their journey into the incubator.

“The CIE has been amazing,” Collin said. “There is no way I would be where I am without this program.”

Collin said the support of mentorship, funding, workshops and even office space made the CIE an invaluable experience for De Oro Devices.

By Dylan Grant

Brett Foreman created a mobile app that offers rewards for being real-world social. CIE Incubator Company Kick-it Points allows users to claim deals from local businesses for engaging in activities exclusive to San Luis Obispo.

Trekking up Bishop Peak, taking a jaunt through Avila Beach or hunkering down to study in Kennedy Library can unlock various rewards and discounts from San Luis Obispo vendors. Users can download the Kick-it Points app for free on the App Store and scroll through an interactive map to find prime deals and activities. After paying a visit to select Kick-it locations, they can then redeem premium discounts from local favorites such as Woodstock’s Pizza, House of Bagels, Frog & Peach and Bull’s Tavern.

While Kick-it Points provides great options for those operating on a budget, the app also offers local businesses a unique opportunity to connect with consumers.

“One of our vendors actually just reached out to me saying that he would like me to move the structure of his deal to a different location in the real world,” Foreman said. “He was actually getting too much traffic.”

Foreman hopes to bring people together by motivating app users to engage with their community. Plans for future development include automating his app to make it easier for business owners to become Kick-it Points merchants. Such advancements could soon spur Kick-it Points rewards in both Santa Barbara and San Francisco.

“Being in the incubator has been a wonderful experience,” Foreman said, comparing the HotHouse to a human Google. “It’s helped my company grow immensely.”

The HotHouse provides the resources and mentorship needed to launch a startup. Join a community of entrepreneurs and apply to be a HotHouse incubator. https://calpolycie.wpengine.com/launch/hothouse-incubator/