(INSPIRING!

music) - [Interviewer] What did it mean to you to win?

- Whew Okay, alright, to win would be not to sound over dramatic, but it would certainly be life-changing.

Not only the resources that would come with this and the contacts that would come with it, but the encouragement of knowing that you're, that they think that you're the best team.

That encouragement for just a little startup would be unprecedented, it would be invaluable for us.

(inspiring music) - [Interviewer] How are you feeling this morning?

- Pretty good, I think we're prepared.

We just went upstairs and practiced.

- So the feeling before I pitch competition, that's a scary one.

It's, you know, you get the butterflies in your stomach.

- As soon as you get rolling, that's when it all just, the practice comes into play, and you got it down.

It just comes down to, what do you have to lose?

- Entrepreneurship is close to my heart.

One of the biggest challenges in our country today are the failure of too many of our upstanding and hardworking young people.

Even though they've got wonderful ideas about where they can go and what they can be.

This is just one way in which we can reach out and see if we can't get more and more people to share their ideas.

And give them rewards for the success of being able to bring those to venture and then onto a real business.

- You know, coming into these events, you don't tell yourself that you expect to win.

But afterwards you realize that you expected to win.

- Yes, comments are ugly.

Yes, they're uncomfortable.

And yes they're a pain to carry around with me everywhere I go.

But how do you know your product works?

How do you know this is safe?

And the answer... - So the background behind Park & Diamond was that now over, a little over a year ago, my sister was involved in a hit and run.

(emotional music) She was actually in a coma for four months.

She was riding her bike through the intersection of Park and Diamond.

So there was a while where we were just, my family, we were just relegated to stand on the sidelines and hope for the best.

And that's where we really needed something to actually occupy ourselves.

We really needed something to pull ourselves away from it.

And that's where having this idea of we can do something, we can change something, really helped us, on a personal level, really helped us cope with this tragedy.

(emotional music) - So, we kind of went through and looked at how do we improve cycling safety?

And, you know, thank God in this situation for Dave, his sister has made a full recovery.

We didn't really want anybody else to have to go through the experience that his family went through.

So, first thing, I'm an Engineering Science Mechanics major, which focuses a lot on computer modeling of material behavior and fundamental mechanics.

And David is a Mechanical Engineer, which focuses a lot on product design and manufacturing.

And when we looked at the statistics, one thing really rung out.

In 97 percent of cycling fatalities, the rider was not wearing a helmet.

So we saw this as an easy opportunity to improve cycling safety so we decided we were gonna start with the helmet and redefine the user experience.

- As you can see, David is taking our product out of the water bottle, which shows exactly how portable it is and easy it is to assimilate to day-to-day life.

And not only are we introducing a paradigm shift in portability, we are also redefining aesthetics.

Our product is so thin that at five feet it is nearly indistinguishable from normal headwear... - So the pitch competition is, while they are not the end-all be-all for putting together a business plan, they are crucial for forcing you to go through the motions.

And they really require you to think about where you're making progress and where you're not making progress.

So this one has been a really cool experience.

I mean, the level of professionalism that everybody acts with here, even though we are competing against each other, everybody is trying to help out.

Because at the end of the day, we are all fighting the same struggle, which is we're trying to bring a business into the world as students.

And so what I've found is the people that have been successful at these events are the ones that are willing to just absorb what's going on.

It's kind of like a super-excelerated course, right?

We learn so much in just a span of, you know, in this case 72 hours.

- So trying to break through into the marketplace is much more difficult today.

You know, than it was 15 or 20 years ago.

What each one of the 25 were doing was extremely encouraging to me.

That we have so many young people from so many places in the country, you know, that honestly have identified areas of opportunity and have already gone after ways in which they can make a difference someplace.

I'm just genuinely impressed.

- [Interviewer] How are you, how are you feeling right now?

- Everybody's a little... - Okay, so we will call out the third, second and first.

Third place winner $25,000... is Yellow Card.

(applause) Alright, second place, from Northeastern... Eat Your Coffee.

(applause) Alright, here we go.

First place, Park & Diamond.

(applause) (inspiring music) - [Jordan] I think it's gonna be crazy to see something that was on a chalkboard become an actual product.

Probably never would have thought that I would have started a company if you asked me five years ago.

- Knowing that the work I put into this company and the work that my partner Jordan and I put into this can amount to something real, can amount to getting actual impact that can change lives, is something that when it's four in the morning and we're driving home from the office for a eight am class, that gets us up in the morning for that class.

So the feeling of actually seeing somebody use the helmet and knowing we helped, knowing firsthand how bad it could have been, that's something that would make all of this worthwhile because we made that difference.