Wish List Lands a Photo Finish at October Virtual Hatching Event
Social Media and E-Commerce Hybrid for Car Owners Takes Top Prize at October 8 Hatching
LANSING, Mich. (October 16, 2020) – Six budding entrepreneurs pitched at the Lansing Economic Area Partnership’s (LEAP) October 8 virtual Hatching event, showcasing a diverse range of business ideas.
This month’s pitches included a sustainability-minded energy cooperative, cost-effective bed and breakfast, local bike-based food delivery system, research aggregation software platform and a faith-based women’s empowerment startup.
October’s judging panel included Jeff Wesley of Red Cedar Ventures, Mike Murshak of Loomis Law, Dan Nuñez of Wheel House Studio, Jen Estill of Redhead Design Studio and Nicholas Pope of Washington Avenue Advisors.
The event featured an inspiring halftime performance by James Gardin during the judges’ deliberations.
Top prize went to Qichao Wang’s Wish List, an app-based platform that Wang described as a “combination of Instagram and Amazon” for car owners.
Wang designed Wish List to solve common challenges faced by car owners including finding trustworthy maintenance shops, identifying and then buying the correct parts needed for maintenance and connecting with others who share their interest in cars. Wang’s app will offer users a platform to share their car stories with others, order necessary parts directly from suppliers and locate reputable shops to help install parts and perform maintenance.
Judges appreciated the depth of data that Wang put into his presentation, including extensive competitor research and user projections. Wang also brought additional knowledge of his target demographic with three years’ experience of selling cars and performance parts.
Wang’s win at the Hatching provided validation in his vision for Wish List and will jumpstart bringing it to consumers.
“Winning the Hatching was very inspirational. It gives me confidence that my idea is viable,” said Wang. “I’m going to use the funds to start the development of my first version of an e-commerce website.”
The Hatching is a business pitch competition produced by LEAP. This year, LEAP has partnered with the Fledge, a one-of-a-kind space that offers spaces, tools, connections, funding and other resources for entrepreneurs to further their ideas in an environment that is radically inclusive, diverse and adaptable to all sorts of needs. This year’s virtual series provides one winning entrepreneur from each event with $2,000 in cash support, as well as connection to valuable business services. The 2020 Hatching series revolves around a central theme of resilience.
“We continue to see great success in engaging Lansing’s entrepreneur community with our virtual Hatching event,” said Anum Mughal, LEAP’s manager of new ventures. “The consistently strong performance from our participants and the diversity of ideas brought to the table each month really showcases the uniqueness and resilience of our region.”
People interested in participating and pitching at LEAP’s Virtual Hatching competition can submit their ideas to www.thehatching.org. Submissions for the November 12 event are being accepted through Thursday, November 5.
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About LEAP
The Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) is a coalition of area leaders partnering to build a stronger community for all–working every day to grow, retain and attract business to the Lansing region.
About The Hatching
The Hatching is a regularly occurring business pitch competition founded by LEAP, established as part of a community wide effort to support local entrepreneurs. Participants submit business and product ideas through the Hatching’s online portal, where the public subsequently votes forward the ideas that will be pitched in front of a live audience and panel of judges.
Category: Entrepreneurship