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SALT LAKE CITY — A student startup out of Brigham Young University took home a $30,000 prize over the weekend, en route to a first place finish in the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge.
The statewide business-model competition is managed by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, an interdisciplinary division of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, and sponsored by Zions Bank.
This year's winner — Powder Baby Dry Shampoo — sells healthy, non-aerosol dry shampoo products in five different colors.
Kylee Black, who founded Powder Baby, said the cash prize will be instrumental in advancing her business.
"When they called my name, and I won the grand prize, that means so much to me because we need this money to advertise this summer," Black said. "We need this grant to really keep growing. We have the best product. We just need to get it in front of people and this competition gives us the legs to do that."
Black said she founded her company after her experience using other dry shampoo products, with the thought that she could create a better product.
"I just really hated my dry shampoo, so we really went for it," Black said. "It took about a year to come up with the right bottle and the right ingredients. Now, you can find us on our website. We are also selling on Amazon."
Across the whole competition, teams from colleges and universities around the state competed for $100,000 in prizes. Although Powder Baby Dry Shampoo took home the top prize, other student startups had successful weekends as well.
A team from Ensign College took home second place and $10,000 with its Iso Retractor product — a dental retractor with suction slots to efficiently eliminate over 90% of fluid from the oral cavity. In third place was Spot Parking, a collaboration between BYU and the U. that automates and streamlines parking enforcement processes, providing reliable, consistent and fair enforcement of parking policies through machine learning and computer vision. The Spot Parking team won $7,500.
"We saw an amazing group of student entrepreneurs from around the state at the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge this year," said Anne Bastien, program director at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. "The competition allows these teams to compete for cash and prizes, and it also gives them a great opportunity to practice their pitch and make great connections that will help them build their companies. We look forward to seeing what these teams and individuals accomplish in the years to come."
Earlier in March, the Lassonde Institute hosted the high school version of the challenge where West High School's Rocket Tutors business was crowned as the winner and earned a $10,000 prize.
The business looks to provide free one-on-one online math tutoring and was started by Syna Aggarwal with her brother, Arya, after a personal experience with needing a tutor.
People can learn more about all of the finalists from the 2024 Utah Entrepreneur Challenge on Lassonde's website.
