Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Penn State opens entrepreneur center
REV-UP at the Great Valley campus works with area students and residents who think they have good business ideas
EAST WHITELAND » Suburban entrepreneurs have a new resource ready to help them determine whether their idea is ready for the market.
Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies near Malvern on Monday cut the ribbon on its new REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship.
In May 2016, the campus received a $50,000 seed grant from the Invent Penn State initiative to establish the center. Working with the Chester County Economic Development Council, the center seeks to encourage both Penn State students and are residents to generate innovative, commercially viable solutions to address existing and emerging business needs.
Since then, the center has helped launch a graduate certificate in new ventures and entrepreneurship, awarded the Warren V. Musser Fellowship in Entrepreneurial Studies to support a full-time graduate student interested in launching a business, and hosted an inaugural student pitch day for scholars to share their ideas with faculty and area professionals.
Leo Daiuto, entrepreneur-
in-residence with the program, said one of the bigger roles of the new center is to act as a sounding board for those who believe they have a good idea for a product or business.
“I’ll act as an entrepreneurial guide,” said Daiuto, who with his brother in 2005 founded Slamm, a creative agency providing digital solutions that was eventually acquired by Evolve Controls. “As entrepreneurs, we all made a lot of mistakes starting our own companies. You look back on it and say, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that.’ That’s one of my roles here, to stop them from making the mistakes I did and that everybody does.”
The center also is a place for students at Penn State Great Valley – many of whom are working professionals who are pursuing advanced degrees to further their careers – to pursue ideas for their own companies.
One of those is Matt Dever, an employee at nearby Cerner Corp. who started taking MBA classes about five years ago.
Dever won REV-UP’s first student pitch event with his website, mattdever.com, which offers health and fitness consultation and coaching as wells as speaking services.
“I find out what a customer wants to improve in life and I develop a very comprehensive plan” involving diet, exercise and stress reduction, Dever explained. “The pitch day challenged me, and several of the professors here encouraged me to try it. I had all of these things going on and they helped pull them together. The goal is to have my own company.”
Chancellor James Nemes said Penn State Great Valley was one of six campuses in the Penn State system to receive grants through the Invent Penn State program to expand entrepreneurial endeavors.
The school has already had two students work with a startup company that received patents, Nemes said.
“We are committed to help early-stage entrepreneurs grow and launch businesses,” Nemes said. “We look forward to serving the Philadelphia region and beyond.”
Neil Sharkey, vice president of research for Penn State, represented the university at Monday’s ceremony.
“Due to its unique location in the heart of Pennsylvania’s economic growth technology corridor, the REV-UP center is uniquely positioned for success,” Sharkey said.
Marybeth DiVincenzo, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the Chester County Economic Development Council, said the center helps the county meet goals of its Vista 2025 strategic plan by helping it attract and keep new companies and workers.
“We’re happy to be a longstanding partner of Penn State’s,” DiVincenzo said, “and we’re grateful to have Penn State’s (contributions) to our economic development.”
Daiuto said the program is preparing for its first-ever “Lion Cage” event this fall, a pitch competition similar to what’s done on the popular TV series, “Shark Tank.”
“The main goal here is to help people who don’t know what to do with their ideas,” said Daiuto, who in 2013 started the West Chesterbased Revolt Group with his brother. More technologybased than Slamm, Revolt builds and provides cloudbased solutions to other organizations. Daiuto now sits on its board.
“We’re not talking about landing $50 million from an investor in Silicon Valley,” Daiuto said of real-life entrepreneurship. “We’re talking about cashing out your 401(k). You have to give up a lot if you want to be an entrepreneur. You have to be the right kind of person.”
Entrepreneurs interested in more information can contact Doug Schumer, faculty director, at revup@psu.edu.