Launch Pad

Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for March is VEERAH, founded by Stacey Chang, WG'12.

Elevator pitch, from Stacey: “Veerah is inspired by women, made for warriors. We are a mission-driven luxury shoe company founded for women to conquer the world in style and make a positive impact. Veerah is PETA approved vegan. All of our shoes are responsibly sourced and meticulously crafted without compromising quality and style. We are proud that we are the only luxury shoe brand that offers high fashion, high function and high impact. Our founding principle is to do good, look incredible.”

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How do you go about convincing factories to work with your startup--especially if you're trying to make a luxury shoe entirely vegan, without sacrificing quality craftsmanship or comfort?

Stacey Chang, WG'12, founder of VEERAH, knows, because that's exactly what she did. Listen to her and Karl Ulrich, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Wharton School, talk about her manufacturing journey, plus the story of how she got Suzy Welch into a pair of VEERAH shoes (hint: it involves Instagram and a lot of persistence).

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After 20 years as what she calls a "sick care entrepreneur," Ashley Dombkowski wanted to truly become a health care entrepreneur. She’s now Co-founder and CEO of SpoonfulOne, a startup that is trying to stop food allergies before they start.

Based on intellectual property licensed from Stanford University, SpoonfulOne introduces the foods are responsible for 90% of food allergies to babies when they are just four to six months old and starting to eat solid food. The science behind this says that, as Ashley explains, “if you can introduce and then include foods that may commonly become allergenic before they become actual allergens to that immune system, we can keep the body from starting to think that those foods are actually something that they should mount an attack to.” Basically, give babies common allergens right away, and they’re less likely to develop allergies to those foods.

SpoonfulOne makes this as easy as possible: the product comes in powder form, and includes a daily dose of vitamin D. Parents can mix it into any food that their child enjoys, and ensure that kids get their daily dose of allergens.

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Finding a new place to live is stressful, but VeryApt—founded by two Wharton MBA alumni, Scott Bierbryer and Ashrit Kamireddi, both WG’14—aims to reduce that stress by restoring trust in the apartment search process.

Recently, Scott joined Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, on his radio show, Launch Pad. Here’s Scott’s elevator pitch for VeryApt: “VeryApt is an apartment marketplace that allows renters to search, schedule and sign an apartment all on one platform. When we built VeryApt what we really wanted to solve was trust in the process. So when lots of people think about the apartment search they think about bait and switch and they think about scams and they really are not sure what they're getting into when they're moving to a new apartment. Everything that differentiates our site is really focused on building up that trust and then getting the renter to the point where they can really enjoy thinking about their new home.”

Listen to Karl and Scott’s half hour conversation for more on how VeryApt optimizes your apartment search; why Philly’s a great place to start a business (Karl and Scott agree!); and the two questions that Scott uses to keep VeryApt on track: “Could we get paid? Do people use it?”

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Fig Loans is super cool for a bunch of reasons:

1)They’re in the payday loans business, but they’re helping people rebuild their credit;

2)The founders are Wharton alumni who met and founded the company while they were getting their MBAs (fun fact: their first project, created at PennApps Hackathon two weeks before school started, was a game called Llama Run);

3)Karl loves the way they identified the opportunity for Fig Loans;

4)Their goal is to “survive indefinitely and to not rely on venture capital money, but to take it, instead, for purposeful growth.”

There’s so much here to love.

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Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for February is Rockets of Awesome, founded by Rachel Blumenthal.

Elevator pitch: “Rockets of Awesome is a personal shopping service and vertical apparel brand for kids. What we really seek to do is to deliver solutions and services to parents. And what we had identified is that kids are outgrowing their clothes every single season. So unlike you and me, where maybe we want a new pair of jeans or a new jacket, my kids actually need an entire new full dresser every single season. It's entirely time-consuming and expensive to do that every three months. So we wanted to do the work for parents, and deliver them exceptional products and value with amazing service.”

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