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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2022 Summer Accelerator Spotlight: Grip Safe

Gun owners in the United States currently have two primary storage options available: cable locks and gun safes. Most gun owners use cable locks, which are much more affordable than gun safes — but also much less secure. 

“You can cut through [cable locks] with scissors or garden shears,” said Shaun Tanaka, a recent interdisciplinary studies and business administration graduate who is now pursuing his Master’s in public policy.

Meanwhile, gun safes are very secure, but also quite expensive. Gun safes can sometimes be even more expensive than actual guns, Tanaka said.

Tanaka, who has a military background, recognized a need for increased firearm safety — as well as an opportunity for innovation within the firearm safety space. Having worked extensively with firearms in the military, he decided to approach the issue from a mechanical standpoint. 

Tanaka, equipped with an idea for an affordable and effective firearm safety device, utilized the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery to found Grip Safe.

The Hatchery is an on-campus program designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. Through the Hatchery, Tanaka met Dylan DeFazio, who is a mechanical engineering junior and an engineer at Grip Safe.

“What initially appealed to me about Grip Safe was the fact that Shaun was in need of technical knowledge,” Defazio said. “At Grip Safe, I focus on the manufacturing and prototyping side of things, and I get to put my mechanical engineering degree to use.”

DeFazio joined Tanaka in building a firearm safety device which, once installed on a firearm, acts as a lockbox. If an unwanted user attempts to break off the device, they will likely break the gun itself, which Tanaka said is “part of the beauty of our design.”

The pair recently received a notice of allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office on their patent application.

Tanaka and DeFazio also brought Grip Safe to Innovation Quest (iQ), a prototyping and business plan competition hosted by the CIE in which Cal Poly students pitch their innovative ideas to a panel of judges for the chance to win thousands of dollars in funding. Grip Safe won the third place prize of $5,000.

“Innovation Quest allowed us to test our business idea, test our pitch, and honestly, we learned a lot about ourselves, as well,” DeFazio said. “That allowed us to hit the Summer Accelerator running.”

The Summer Accelerator is an intensive, 13-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed in order to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses. Grip Safe was one of seven startups accepted into the program in 2022. 

They are currently working on developing and iterating their prototype and collecting customer feedback. They hope to have a finished product by Demo Day on Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock, where the Summer Accelerator teams will showcase the progress they made throughout the summer and pitch their startups.

Tanaka founded Grip Safe with the intention of not only making firearm safety more affordable and accessible, but also with the intention of saving lives.

“I got into this space because I lost a childhood friend to an unsecured AR-15,” Tanaka said. “We’re working on a device that will save lives [which is why] we want to be the go-to solution for firearms safety in the United States.”

2022 Summer Accelerator Spotlight: Venture Rent

Business administration senior Shubh Khandhadia is connecting people to outdoor rental shops with his startup Venture Rent.

Venture Rent is a platform on which people looking to plan their next outdoor experience can find local rental shops. Users input their location and their outdoor experience of choice, and Venture Rent provides a list of relevant rental shops, along with a description of each shop, photos and reviews. Users can then select a shop and book their rental through Venture Rent.

“Our goal is to make it as easy and convenient as possible,” Khandhadia said. “If you’re going to a new place or planning a vacation, we want you to be able to book your outdoor experience in a minute or less.”

The platform is starting with watersports, connecting users to shops that offer products like kayaks, surfboards and fishing boats for rent. Khandhadia said he plans to eventually expand to also include other outdoor activities, like hiking and backpacking.

Venture Rent began as a peer-to-peer platform for renting surfboards, an idea which originated at Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Startup Marathon, a 54-hour long event at which student innovators work through the weekend to develop a startup idea. 

Following Startup Marathon, Khandhadia brought the idea to the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an on-campus program designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. Khandhadia began to utilize the Hatchery’s resources to start building his business.

He also enrolled in Introduction to Entrepreneurship (BUS 310), a course taught by the CIE’s Direction of Student Innovation Programs Jose Huitron, which introduces students to the startup process. Khandhadia learned about customer development, product development and the processes behind Minimum Viable Product (MVP) testing.

Khandhadia continued to develop Venture Rent eventually pivoting to become a business-to-consumer platform — rather than act as a platform for people to rent out their own outdoor equipment, Venture Rent would connect people to “mom and pop rental shops.”

He also applied to the CIE’s Summer Accelerator, an intensive, 13-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed in order to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses.

Khandhadia applied to the program hoping to “be able to get the practice and learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur from people who have done it and were successful,” he said.

Venture Rent was one of seven teams accepted to the program. Since the start of the summer, Khandhadia has been leveraging resources provided by the Accelerator, including $10,000 in funding, office space in downtown San Luis Obispo and opportunities to learn from experienced entrepreneurs.

“All the speakers that come through the program and the mentors who have experience building products, they give feedback and advice, and that’s all really beneficial,” Khandhadia said.

Venture Rent’s MVP is nearing completion, after which beta testing will begin.

There are currently six rental shops who have agreed to be featured on Venture Rent, five of which are located in Orange County and one of which is local to San Luis Obispo. Khandhadia said he hopes to expand to include more rental shops throughout the summer.

He also said he wants Venture Rent to eventually be “the all in one store for outdoor experiences.” 

“Whenever you’re planning a trip, wherever you’re going, we want to be the place that you go to when you’re looking to have an outdoor experience,” he said.

Khandhadia, along with the rest of the 2022 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch his startup and showcase the progress he made throughout the summer at Demo Day, on Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. In-person and virtual tickets are available here.

2022 Summer Accelerator Spotlight: X-Adapt

Evan Lalanne is working to increase accessibility for people with disabilities by adapting mobility devices. Lalanne, a manufacturing engineering fifth-year, developed a modification for an electric unicycle that allows for seated riding by adaptive users. It has greater mobility and capability than most wheelchairs, allowing riders to access environments with tougher terrain, like hiking trails.

Lalanne initially began modifying mobile devices for personal use. The first device he modified was a hoverboard, creating wooden blocks that allowed him to ride it with his wheelchair. The next iteration of that device was a modified electric skateboard. 

Lalanne said the skateboard was “a cool concept, but the practical applications for it were pretty minimal.”

“The next step was asking: How could I apply that same idea, but make it work so that it can benefit more people?” Lalanne said.

The answer came in the form of a modified electric unicycle, which Lalanne is now looking to bring to market. He is working with the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) to scale his business, X-Adapt, formerly Adapted Mobility.

Lalanne initially discovered the CIE through Introduction to Entrepreneurship (BUS 310), a course he took as an elective.

“I ended up loving the class,” Lalanne said. “My background is in engineering, so all the business stuff is a little bit of uncharted territory for me, but I’m throwing myself in and seeing what I can do.”

Introduction to Entrepreneurship led Lalanne to participate in the CIE’s Innovation Quest (iQ), a prototyping and business plan competition in which Cal Poly students pitch their innovative ideas to a panel of judges for the chance to win thousands of dollars in funding.

Lalanne pitched X-Adapt, presenting an early version of his business plan as well as a prototype of the modified electric unicycle. With that pitch, he won the first place prize of $15,000.

“Innovation Quest was kind of a scramble,” Lalanne said. “I started with an idea and had to kind of build a business model around it. Doing that was certainly something out of my area of expertise, but thanks to the resources of the CIE, I made it work.”

Lalanne is now participating in the CIE’s Summer Accelerator, a 13-week program that provides Cal Poly students with the resources needed to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses.

Lalanne currently has a workable prototype of the modified electric unicycle, but throughout the summer, he will be developing a second prototype that is more consistent with the manufacturing techniques that will be used on production versions of the product. He also plans to start reaching out to potential partners.

“I think a big part of the business is going to be getting people past that initial barrier of entry, feeling like they can’t ride the device,” Lalanne said. “I think a great way to make it more accessible for people is going to be to partner with adaptive recreation programs.”

Lalanne hopes to create partnerships with programs that can provide the necessary training for potential consumers to grow comfortable with and confidently use his product prior to purchase.

Although the modified electric unicycle is currently Lalanne’s only product, he hopes to eventually expand X-Adapt to offer “a series of adaptations that can achieve a variety of different tasks, all centered around making the world more accessible for people with disabilities,” he said.

“That can be as simple as something like a hand-mount for a toothbrush — something incredibly simple that’s very different from our initial pathway, but still achieves that Northstar goal for the company,” Lalanne said.

Lalanne, along with the rest of the 2022 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch his startup and showcase the progress he made throughout the summer at Demo Day, on Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. In-person and virtual tickets are available here.

2022 Summer Accelerator Spotlight: Cheekies

Recent biomedical engineering graduate McCall Brinskele was taking Contemporary Issues in Biomedical Engineering (BMED 450), a course taught by lecturer Sara Della Ripa which explores appropriate solutions for maternal health, when she realized the potential for innovation within the period care industry.

Brinskele learned that not only are tampons and pads, the standard solutions for people on their periods, not the entirety of period-wear products available to menstruators, but certain health risks are associated with those solutions.

Brinskele took it upon herself to innovate a new and safer solution — period-wear that utilizes leak-proof technology to provide menstruators with greater comfort while sleeping on their periods.

Brinskele initially began developing the product as a senior project, working alongside Cal Poly business administration majors to found period-wear company Cheekies, formerly FemForward. Senior project advisors then encouraged Cheekies to apply for Innovation Quest (iQ), a prototyping and business plan competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in which Cal Poly students pitch their innovative ideas to a panel of judges for the chance to win thousands of dollars in funding.

Cheekies was the runner-up at iQ 2022, winning the second-place prize of $10,000 — as well as an opportunity to interview for the CIE’s Summer Accelerator.

The Summer Accelerator is an intensive, 13-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed in order to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses.

Brinskele and her co-founder Mariana Inofuentes, a recent industrial engineering graduate who Brinskele found through professor recommendations, were accepted into the 2022 Summer Accelerator.

“The mindset behind choosing to do the Summer Accelerator was that we both want to see this company succeed,” Brinskele said. “We’re very driven and we want to take it all the way because this is very important not only to us, but to all the women who are in our lives.”

Cheekies currently has a working prototype and is ready to start user testing. They are in the process of putting together focus groups and are actively looking for participants.

Cheekies is striving to perfect their prototype and begin manufacturing their product by the end of the summer. They hope to eventually expand to develop similar products, like swimwear and athletic apparel, that will allow menstruators more freedom while on their periods, Inofuentes said.

“We’re interested in seeing if we could expand, still with that same mission in mind,” Inofuentes said. “Allowing women to feel comfortable, secure and still sexy while they’re on their periods.”

Brinskele and Inofuentes, along with the rest of the 2022 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase the progress they made throughout the summer at Demo Day, on Sept. 13 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. In-person and virtual tickets are available here.