Starting as a small clothing pop-up in one of their grandma’s front yard, four Cal Poly students transformed their hobby into a full enterprise, with their very own store in Downtown San Luis Obispo. 

Central Coast Vintage is a vintage clothing company that curates vintage clothing to provide college students with affordable fashion.

The idea for the startup originated after co-owners Nate Smidt, Beau Gamboni, Dominic Gamboni and Austen Hanner started buying their clothes at thrift shops to cut down on expenses. Soon after, they decided to sell their old clothes at a local pop-up event. After collectively making $1,000, they decided to host their own monthly pop-ups.  

Smidt and his partners started their pop-up events in Bakersfield. They eventually moved their pop-ups to San Luis Obispo, selling at the Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market and on Cal Poly’s Dexter Lawn.

Smidt later came in contact with a local landlord and made a deal to open a store in Downtown San Luis Obispo. Central Coast Vintage had its grand opening on February 18, 2023. 

“You couldn’t even walk through the store because everyone we knew from college was there,” Smidt said. “We made 15 times we had ever made before.” 

Following the grand opening, the co-founders joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery.

The CIE Hatchery is an on-campus startup incubator open to all Cal Poly students interested in learning how to take a business from an idea to launch. Student entrepreneurs are provided with resources like mentorship, coaching and weekly workshops.  

Students learn the skills critical to entrepreneurship. Smidt said one of the biggest skills he learned in the program is organization.  

He also explained that working around other driven student entrepreneurs motivates him. 

“You hear so many people that are like, ‘I want to work for myself,’ and it’s really inspiring to hear all of them talking,” he said.  

Smidt and his co-owners now plan on investing the capital raised through Central Coast Vintage into a different business venture. They are working to develop an app that will help students with college housing. Smidt pitched his idea in the Hatchery and was instantly put in contact with an app developer. 

The co-founders hope to start launching more community events where college students can come and re-sell their clothing. They also plan on coming out with their own Central Coast Vintage merchandise.

Central Coast Vintage is excited to grow even more as a business and leverage Hatchery resources.

“If you are struggling to find money but you have the idea, go to the Hatchery,” Smidt said. “It is such a good way to start your business.” 

Peggy Thorp was a secretary at Rug Doctor, a carpet cleaning franchise.

Thorp was “the glue that held everything together,” said Ethan Beck, whose father owned the Rug Doctor where Thorp worked. She oversaw the logistics of the business, handling administrative work like appointment bookings and timekeeping.

When Thorp eventually retired, Beck’s father attempted to do the work that she had done. Administrative work began to consume his work days.

“He was spread so thin that he had no time at all,” Beck said.

Beck soon realized, however, that a lot of the work that Thorp had done throughout the 1990s could now be automated with software — so Beck, along with his sister Isabella, created PeggyAI, a software workflow solution that automates different business processes, such as timekeeping, equipment tracking and employee safety.

“It’s a software to automate what Peggy did,” Beck said. “Thus, PeggyAI.”

The software was originally intended to be used solely for the Becks’ family businesses, but once Beck saw how helpful it could be, he set out to bring PeggyAI to businesses everywhere.

“It’s something that everybody can benefit from,” Beck said. “Because it started with just us, we want to take that to everybody else and help as many people as we can.”

Currently, Beck’s target market is agriculture companies. Through its automated workflows, PeggyAI software allows business owners to focus on other aspects of their companies.

Beck said he wants to provide more freedom to business owners by building a platform that “gives them their time back.”

Beck, who graduated from Cal Poly in 2022 with a degree in business administration, joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery shortly before graduating. The Hatchery teaches Cal Poly students how to build a business by providing resources like mentors, guest speakers and workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. 

“The Hatchery offers so many different resources that you can tap into and really help wherever you need it,” Beck said.

Since joining the Hatchery, Beck has benefitted from coaching and mentorship that has taught him the best practices for pitching his product. He is now able to give an informative and impactful business pitch that has already attracted clients.

PeggyAI is a fully functional product that is currently serving two clients. Beck is now working to attract more users, and he said he eventually hopes to expand PeggyAI to be “the Excel of business processes.” 

PeggyAI was “made for founders,” Beck said, and he hopes to see his startup grant those founders more freedom to focus on the things that matter most.

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.

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.

Thomas Soares was “talking trash” when inspiration struck. 

Soares wasn’t “talking trash” in the traditional sense. He was discussing the recycling industry and learning which materials are and are not recyclable. That is when he had the idea for Clear Bin.

Clear Bin is a mobile application working to reduce contamination rates for curbside recycling across the United States.

Curbside recycling is considered contaminated when a recycling collection contains materials “not accepted into residents’ curbside program” or acceptable materials with “unacceptable amounts of residue,” according to the Recycling Partnership’s 2020 State of Curbside Recycling Report. More than 30 percent of residential recycling is considered contaminated, according to the same report.

One contributing factor to this high contamination rate is residents not knowing which materials are and are not recyclable, Soares said. Clear Bin is attempting to resolve that issue. 

Clear Bin users can take a picture of an item, and the app will inform them whether the material is recyclable or not. It also informs users whether the item is of acceptable quality, and if it needs to be cleaned, dried or otherwise altered before it can be recycled.

Soares, an architectural engineering senior, is working with computer science seniors Ruhi Prasad and Jack Fales, to build the Clear Bin app.

Soares is also working with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. The Hatchery connected Soares to the resources needed for both Clear Bin’s development and his own professional development.

“The Hatchery has definitely given me a lot of confidence to be able to put myself out there,” he said. 

Students do not need any prior business or entrepreneurship experience before joining the Hatchery. The program provides plenty of opportunities for students like Soares, who started Clear Bin with no formal business education or experience, to learn about entrepreneurship in ways that appeal to them.

“The Hatchery has done a great job of making this more about problem solving,” Soares said. “From an engineering perspective, I love the rational, practical thought, and the Hatchery has been able to break down entrepreneurship like this, in a way that I enjoy.”

The Clear Bin team is currently focusing on app development and working towards launching a program. Soares hopes to eventually help communities throughout the United States reduce their waste.

“There is a big divide with the understanding of what is and is not recyclable,” Soares said. “If we’re able to communicate and work with people and haulers and recycling companies across the United States, that’s when I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

Zander Sheffield spent his high school years purchasing shoes at department and wholesale stores, then reselling them online for a profit. He would then use his profits to buy more shoes.

“I was kind of like a shoe hoarder at one point,” he said.

Now a third year industrial technology and packaging major at Cal Poly, Sheffield is using his knowledge of the footwear industry to pursue a new business endeavor and build his own startup, Yardy Shoes.

Yardy Shoes is providing greater longevity for children’s footwear with an extendable shoe system that can be adjusted to several different sizes. It’s a cost-effective solution for the 65% of children who wear ill-fitting shoes, Sheffield said.

Sheffield’s began developing Yardy Shoes in 2020, when he discovered the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery.

The Hatchery is an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. Sheffield stumbled across the Hatchery while looking through the Cal Poly website during quarantine.

“When COVID first broke out, we all got sent home, and I just didn’t know what to do with my time,” Sheffield said. “I was going through the Cal Poly website and found the Hatchery. I’d always had an idea for a shoe business, so I just thought, ‘Why not?’ and applied.”

The Hatchery introduced Sheffield to the basics of entrepreneurship and provided opportunities to learn and network.

Sheffield also found mentorship through the Hatchery program. CIE director of student innovation programs and Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business lecturer Jose Huitron connects Sheffield to resources that can help grow Yardy Shoes.

Other student entrepreneurs like Alexandra Joelson and Samuel Andrews, co-founders of Intego Technology, a startup creating the most durable and sustainable footwear on the market.

The Intego Technology team began participating in CIE programs in 2019, when Joelson won the CIE Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC). They joined the Hatchery shortly after their win at EPC. 

Now, the Intego Technology team is able to share their experience with new CIE entrepreneurs, like Sheffield.

“They’ve been a big help, especially when I first started out,” Sheffield said. “I had no idea what a patent was, I didn’t know the steps that were needed to make a shoe business. Sam and Alexandra have been a big help mentoring us.”

Sheffield’s team also includes computer science junior Arden Ozdere, general engineering junior Vincent Corella, entrepreneurship sophomore Erin Powers and materials engineering junior Chris Murray.

The startup team is currently working to generate prototype ideas and assess the viability of those ideas. Once their prototypes are completed, they plan to reach out to potential customers — parents whose children can wear the shoes and test the product.

The Yardy Shoes team hopes their product will eventually “change the world in a positive way,” Sheffield said. 

Shoes put, on average, 30 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to Sheffield. Yardy Shoe’s extendible shoe will reduce the overall number of shoes needed, and therefore reduce carbon output.

“Long term, I just want to create something that’s good for the world,” Sheffield said.

John Shaw’s interest in 3D-printing began when he got his first car.

Shaw drove a Nissan Altima, a model of car with a rubber strip that commonly loosens and disconnects from its place on the underside of the vehicle. The same problem happened to Shaw’s car, but when he approached a mechanic looking to repair the piece, he was told the auto repair shop did not keep those parts in-stock.

Shaw decided to literally create his own solution to the problem, and 3D-print a replacement part. The project was simple and successful and helped Shaw realize 3D-printing could help streamline engineering and manufacturing industries. 

Now a fifth-year aerospace engineering student at Cal Poly, Shaw is working to improve the capabilities of 3D-printing in order to accelerate innovation within the manufacturing industry.

Shaw is founder of Hedron Design, a startup digitizing the supply chain to transform manufacturing into a platform. This is accomplished “by integrating quality control, automation and things like distribution in enterprise resource planning into [manufacturer’s] workflow,” Shaw said.

Shaw later brought the startup to the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas.

The Hatchery provided Shaw with an introduction into entrepreneurship — a very different discipline than engineering. 

“Being an engineer, everything is about the solution, and there’s usually only one set way to do things, and you’re expected to find a complete answer at the end,” Shaw said. “But with entrepreneurship, you can take so many different avenues and approaches to solving a problem.”

Shaw is also working alongside Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) student Adam Heymann to build Hedron Design.

The Hatchery connected Shaw and Heymann with mentors who can help them navigate the startup process. CIE director of student innovation programs and Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business lecturer Jose Huitron has been a valuable resource, Shaw said.

Huitron advises the Hedron Design team and “not only helps bounce ideas around, but validates that we’re doing the right things at the right time,” Shaw said.

Shaw said he hopes Hedron Design can create a greener manufacturing industry. Traditional manufacturing methods require large machines which cut down a base material into the shape of the part. 3D-printing, meanwhile, begins with fine materials which are built upon until the part is created, so “there is significantly less waste material,” according to Shaw.

Hedron Design has the potential to increase access to 3D-printing, creating a greener manufacturing space.

“The benefits of 3D-printing are not only economically awesome, but also benefit the environment,” Shaw said. “I want to see the future of manufacturing being greener, and I think what we’re doing with Hedron Design can genuinely help with that.”

Three former Cal Poly soccer players are turning their passion for fitness into an entrepreneurial endeavor. Fourth year computer science major Michael Bautista has partnered with his friends Zack DiDonato and Rigas Rigopoulos to create EVO Athletics, a startup working to build an iOS application that allows users to explore new ways to achieve their health and fitness goals.

“We had this idea of creating a training facility and an application, and we decided why not try and pursue it as a sort of side project,” said Bautista. “Then one of our members found the Hatchery, and we decided to join and try to pursue it as a startup idea.”

The Hatchery, an on-campus Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) program that helps students develop their innovative ideas into viable startups, has been a valuable asset to the EVO Athletics team. While Bautista and his colleagues entered this project with the technical skills needed to create the EVO Athletics app, building and maintaining a business was entirely new to them. 

“I think the Hatchery is a great opportunity for all Cal Poly students,” said Bautista. “We decided to join the Hatchery because we had little to no business knowledge and, being a computer science student, I had very little resources to acquire those business skills. The Hatchery has really helped us in the business side of our company, while I can really focus on the technical side with my degree.”

One undertaking the Hatchery is currently helping the team with is customer acquisition. This means endless strategic interviewing of potential customers to identify the problems they face and innovating solutions for these issues.

Meanwhile, Bautista is developing their iOS application. The app will double as both the first step in the growth of EVO Athletics and Bautista’s senior project. He will be working with a Cal Poly mobile development professor through two quarters to develop the minimum viable product (MVP), or a simplified version of an app that allows a product team to quickly receive user feedback that they can use to improve their product.

“My personal next step for our startup is to get the MVP out, which I’m working on for my senior project,” said Bautista. “In terms of business, our next step would be to pitch to some investors, apply to Innovation Quest and hopefully get into the HotHouse to develop the business.”

Although EVO Athletics is still in its early stages, Bautista hopes that he can one day grow his startup into a nationally-recognized brand.

“I’d say one of our long-term goals is to be one of the top health and fitness apps in the app store and maybe create some sort of partnership with an athletic brand, like Nike or Adidas,” he explained.

For now, though, Bautista and his team are focusing on growing EVO Athletics into a sustainable business — one that Bautista hopes he can fully devote himself to after graduation.

“I definitely want to be able to work on this full time,” he said. “My two passions are technology and fitness, and this is the only thing I’ve found that combines the two.”

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Senior business students Sara Glaser and Madison Lewandowski are making it easier than ever for children to have fun while remaining physically active with Fearless Fitness Kids, a student-led startup developing an interactive, story-based video game that requires users to work out as they play.

“Parents need a convenient way to keep their kids active and get their energy out, so we’re creating a game where the core mechanic is exercise,” said Glaser. 

The Fearless Fitness video game creates a positive experience with exercise, helping children to develop and improve their muscle strength, cardiorespiratory health, coordination and fine motor skills — all while having fun.

The idea for Fearless Fitness originated in November 2019 at Startup Marathon, a 54-hour long event hosted by Cal Poly Entrepreneurs in which student innovators work through the weekend to build out a startup idea.

“I came to this event not knowing anyone and almost left because it was a little overwhelming,” Glaser recounted. “But I stayed and pitched an idea — originally for a different concept, but it was related to fitness.”

At Startup Marathon, Glaser met co-founder Lewandowski, who pitched a concept similar to Glaser’s. 

“Long story short, we combined ideas and formed a team,” said Glaser.

The founding team has since expanded to include biomedical engineering major Clayton Pelz and computer science major Emily O’Neal, who have worked together to code and animate the video game. Glaser is meanwhile responsible for the fitness-related content of the game, while Lewandowski is responsible for marketing.

The Hatchery, a CIE program designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas, has helped the Fearless Fitness team navigate the obstacles of the entrepreneurial journey.

“The Hatchery has been a tremendous help,” said Glaser. “There have been many times when we’ve been in a rut and we’ve been stuck, and they’ve helped us through that and given us a lot of great ideas.”

At this point in their startup growth, The Fearless Fitness team has released a simplified, eight-minute version of their video game for customer testing.

“We’ve gotten some really great feedback, which is very exciting,” said Glaser. “We’ve had a lot of teachers play it in their classrooms, a lot of parents having their kids play it, so that’s been really helpful.”

The team is also working to advance their technology, which will not only allow them to improve upon the current version of their video game, but to create and produce more games. Eventually, Glaser hopes to reach a point where Fearless Fitness is its own platform, where users subscribe month-to-month for access to a whole host of Fearless Fitness video games.

“Our games are story-based. People could play a game and then there would be a sequel game,” Glaser explained. “The story could continue.”

Glaser and her team recently brought their idea to Innovation Quest, an annual competition hosted by the CIE where Cal Poly students pitch their innovative business ideas and prototypes. Fearless won first place, and the team was awarded $15,000 in prize money that will be used to further fund their startup.

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