Founder: Jonathan Williams, 21
Business: RedBrick Entertainment
What it does: Event planning for colleges and universities
Founded: 2022
No. employees: 2
Informational video: https://vimeo.com/726490302
Universities spend tons of money on non-athletic events – even when students don’t show up. So, how can universities ensure a better return on investment for the dollars they spend on these events?
That’s where RedBrick Entertainment comes in.
As a student at Wake Forest, Jonathan Williams learned about the problem that universities have when it comes to student attendance to events outside of athletics. Williams and his business partner, fellow Wake Forest student Connor Stanley, founded RedBrick with the goal of helping universities throw and market better events that increase student attendance.
“We like to say we’re the halfway point between the dumb stuff that kids want to do and the overly safe events that universities throw,” said Williams, who is now a senior.
Examples he gave are a concert in November where the “cost” for students is voting in elections or a massive scavenger hunt during freshman orientation where the prize is a free spring break trip.
RedBrick will focus on large-scale events with attendance goals of 1,500 to 3,000 students. Williams said that RedBrick wants the events to appeal to both the universities and the students.
Typically, student unions or student engagement offices plan events at universities. The benefit of RedBrick, Williams said, is that the company can focus solely on the planning and marketing of events while universities cannot.
The company also is working on an app that streamlines the event planning process for universities so that they do not need to engage RedBrick directly.
RedBrick is currently pre-revenue, Williams said, and is in conversations with a handful of universities. He expects that the company will achieve its first contract next February or March and put on its first event early in the fall 2023 semester, hopefully around freshman orientation.
“Universities know they need to engage students more,” Williams said. “It’s not where it was in the 70s, where the big football game had the entire campus stop. You’re competing with Netflix, Hulu and a bunch of different social media. Kids themselves are different; they don’t interact as much with each other as they once did.”
Currently, RedBrick is in a friends and family round of fundraising. Williams said that the company has raised about $50,000 towards a $200,000 goal. The company has also begun to talk with early-stage investors to explore fundraising through that route.
In April, RedBrick competed in e-Fest, a national pitch competition sponsored by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation, the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas and EIX, a non-profit online platform for entrepreneurship education. RedBrick finished in the top 15 out of 100 undergraduate businesses.
Williams hopes that RedBrick can partner on events for Wake Forest. He told TBJ that he and his business partner plan to begin their business in North Carolina, as it’s a “natural breeding ground” with plenty of colleges across the state.
