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.” 

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.

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.