A Xavier University senior who wants to make it easier for renters to review their landlords is slated to pitch his newly launched business idea on a “big” stage next week.
Jake Reisig, a senior finance major in Xavier’s Williams College of Business, will compete in the annual Big East Startup Challenge, which will be held virtually at 6 p.m. Feb. 16.
Reisig, a Rochester, N.Y., native, earned the school’s spot — and a $1,500 prize — after topping seven other student entrepreneurs during Xavier’s internal pitch competition Jan. 31.
SpotCheck is a website where renters can rate and review their landlords. The idea is to help prospective tenants make more informed decisions during their housing search.
In the Big East challenge, Reisig will compete head-to-head with other undergraduate student entrepreneurs from the 10 other Big East conference schools, including Butler, University of Connecticut, Georgetown University and more. The founders will pitch their idea to a panel of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and Big East alumni, and teams will be evaluated on concepts, market need, feasibility, sustainability and presentation.
During the Xavier pitch competition, each student prepared a five-minute video presentation of their idea and answered questions from a panel of judges comprising of Xavier faculty members and alumni.
While only one Musketeer advances to the Big East competition, three others took home prize money for their ideas:
- Senior Zack Cuda, studying entrepreneurship and innovation, won the $1,000 second-place prize for Studio Share, a platform similar to Airbnb but for music studio recording.
- Junior Megan Osting, a student studying marketing and entrepreneurship and innovation, finished third and won $500 for Vault. This app combines the resume elements of LinkedIn with the video format of TikTok.
- Senior Kat Seebeck, who is studying management and entrepreneurship and innovation, won a $500 prize for “Best Health Care Idea,” presented by Xavier’s Center for Population Health, for Mixie-Stix. This product detects whether a drink has been spiked.
Xavier won the inaugural Big East Startup Challenge in 2019 with transFarm, a solution for tracing the source of tainted meat products using blockchain technology. Its teams followed up with third- and fourth-place finishes in the next three competitions.
The university is the fifth largest in the region with nearly 6,000 students.
