Keeping an idea flying
Two college students continue their business project— a better clay pigeon— with others in their San Antonio high school
SAN ANTONIO — Four recent Alamo Heights High School graduates, each just 18 years old, found themselves pitching their business proposal inJuly to a groupof investors in the style of ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank.”
Blake Burke faced the judges, readying himself for their questions. Hewas in his living room because of the coronavirus pandemic — dressed for success on a computer screen but with his bare feet crossed under a coffee table.
His team, Leaf Eco Pigeon, was one of five selected out of 164 nationwide to compete in Unchartered Learning’s National Incubator Pitch Competition, where they vied for as much as $15,000 in startup cash by pitching their product — a better clay pigeon.
Leaf, for short, is itself a product of the Alamo Heights High School Business Incubator, only in its second year. Themarketing and finance class brings in mentors from the local business community who help cultivate students’ ideas, along with lawyers who help them get patents to protect their ideas.
The team — consisting of Burke, Brendan Herrmann, Lauren Martinez and Davien Mendiola — set out to solve a problem facing, of all people, skeet shooters. Burke and Herrmannwere enthusiastic practitioners of the sport and knew that typical bright orange clay pigeons are left in pieces on ranches and shooting ranges. Some contain petroleum-based tar and are toxic to wildlife, taking years to biodegrade.
The students wanted to create an environmentally friendly alternative. After much trial and error, Leaf created a target molded from alfalfa pellets and other nontoxic ingredients.
Alamo Heights was the first school in San Antonio to create an incubator program. This year, Reagan High School and the University of Texas at San Antonio launched their own.
The teams compete in a local pitch night for money to continue their businesses, all from community donors.
But this year, Leaf also advanced to the national competition. They submitted pre-recorded videos explaining their product to the judges and tuned in live to answer questions. There was an intimidating moment, Herrmann said, when he noticed the livestream had 300 viewers.
“That fills up the Heights theater,” Herrmann said. “When you’re online, it seems like no one’swatchingme, but if you actually think about it, there’s people all over the nation you don’t know, watching.”
The Alamo Heights team’s ecofriendly shooting pigeon was still in the prototype stage when it competed both locally and nationally, which Burke and Herrmann believe hurt them. Their peers already were turning profits from their businesses.
Leaf placed second both times. But the team walked away with a combined $12,000 — $4,000 from the national competition and $8,000 from the local. The local prize also includes threemeetings with an entrepreneurship company called VelocityTX that helps create startups.
Their former teammates decided to leave the business to focus on other endeavors, so Burke and Herrmann recruited other Alamo Heights studentswho are in the incubator class this year: Lexi Ramirez, Ava Satel and Christopher Scott. The full team meets regularly via videoconferencing to work on the product.
“For me, the victory is going to be actually profiting off our idea,” Burke said. “It’snice to have recognition, but I want to see it on the shelf. That’s when I’ll be most proud of what we’ve done.”
Herrmann echoed the sentiment, adding, “We’ll let the finished product speak for itself.”
Burke and Herrmann are determined to see through what they started, even from their college campuses. Burke is at theUniversity of Texas at Austin and Herrmann is at the University of Georgia. Once two strong-willed boys who butted heads in the beginning, the two now work together as equal partners.
“It’s been a joy to watch these two young men grow in this programbecause it’s completely night and day from day one to the end,” said Patrice Bartlett, who teaches the incubator class along with Cathy Klumpp.
It’s possible that by the time Burke and Herrmann graduate with their bachelor’s degrees, they’ll already be CEOs of a fully developed and profitable company. They’ve committed 10 percent of their royalties to the Heights incubator program.
“I’m an18-year-old kid, but I feel like I’m already an adult starting my own company. It’s really cool,” Burke said.