News

Imagine bringing a business startup idea into a roomful of strangers, spending 54 hours in one weekend solely focused on developing the idea, and emerging with nine new colleagues as the first-place winners of a region-wide pitch competition.

That’s exactly the experience Southern Illinois University Edwardsville senior Dan Palkovic had Nov. 13-15 at Startup Weekend St. Louis. The business idea pitching event was attended by 80 entrepreneurial thinkers from across the Midwest, including a 15-year-old who was part of the winning team. This year’s event kicked off Friday, Nov. 13 at T-REX, a co-working space and technology incubator in downtown St. Louis. 

 “We all gathered at T-REX and they told us how the pitches were going to happen,” said Palkovic, a May 2016 business administration graduate. “Anyone willing to pitch their idea could do so in front of the other participants. Once all the pitches were done, everyone in the audience had an opportunity to vote. Giant sticky notes were used to post ideas to the wall and little sticky notes to vote. The Startup Weekend judges narrowed it down to the top 10 ideas.”

Dinner Kits, the business idea pitched by Brian Nichols, took top honors along with the People’s Choice award for most popular startup. Dinner Kits is a vacuum-sealed, healthy, ready-to-prepare dinner for two that the group plans to market in grocery stores’ refrigerated aisle. Palkovic was so impressed by the pitch and concept, he quickly joined the team.

 “Brian’s original concept – one that our team immediately embraced – was an all-inclusive box with pre-proportioned, healthy ingredients and seasonings,” Palkovic said. “It enables the customer to quickly purchase a complete dinner for two, go home and make an entire meal in minutes.

“Our competitors, who deliver direct-to-the-home meal options, furnish short shelf life ingredients forcing meal preparers to plan in advance. The grocery stores contacted about Dinner Kits really liked our concept because - in their words - it helps ‘disrupt the disruptors’ who have drawn consumers away from the grocery store. Our idea supports the neighborhood grocery store and busy consumers, who want to serve healthy dinners but don’t have time to shop for all the ingredients.”

During the 54-hour stretch, Palkovic and his teammates used their time and resources wisely, creating a shoebox prototype, surveying more than 300 people to gauge their interest in the product and developing their wining pitch.

“Our concept of preparation-ready, no-excess ingredients really resonated with potential customers,” Palkovic said. The initial price point for the two-person Dinner Kit is $15, according to Palkovic, who plans to develop a four-person family meal soon.

As 2015 Startup Weekend winners, the Dinner Kits team receives three months’ free co-working space at Downtown T-REX, e-commerce platform access from MasterCard’s Simplify Commerce, pro-bono professional services and more.

The 22-year-old Palkovic signed up for Startup Weekend with encouragement from SIUE Associate Professor Timothy Schoenecker and Patrick McKeehan, director of the Illinois Metro East Small Business Development Center.

SIUE’s School of Business paid Palkovic’s entry fee along with that of another business student, Annette Anger. Anger is an international student from Germany attending SIUE this semester as part of an exchange program with Hochschule Mainz – University of Applied Sciences.

 “I greatly appreciate the awesome opportunity that SIUE and Startup Weekend St. Louis afforded me,” exclaimed Palkovic. “Our next step is to reconvene the team and continue refining our business strategy. But first I need to get through finals.”

This is the second consecutive year that an SIUE student has contributed to a Startup Weekend St. Louis success. Alexandra Dovgin (BS, business administration, ‘15) was a team member of DiversifyUs, a corporate collaboration app, that took home Startup Weekend’s top prize in 2014.

Photo: SIUE senior Dan Palkovic (fifth from left, middle back) with his winning Dinner Kits team at the Startup Weekend St. Louis.