OSWEGO — Two SUNY Oswego business-administration majors won the top prize of $2,500 in the school’s Launch It entrepreneurship competition. Noah Bull and Tyler Flack won for their idea for a mental-wellness app. Both Bull and Flack are members of the SUNY Oswego Lakers men’s ice-hockey team. “Our business idea was Anonymous Athlete,” Bull said […]
OSWEGO — Two SUNY Oswego business-administration majors won the top prize of $2,500 in the school’s Launch It entrepreneurship competition. Noah Bull and Tyler Flack won for their idea for a mental-wellness app. Both Bull and Flack are members of the SUNY Oswego Lakers men’s ice-hockey team. “Our business idea was Anonymous Athlete,” Bull said in a SUNY Oswego news release. “We want to create a safe haven for college and pro athletes across the country. We just wanna be an outlet, an honest outlet. I know there’s always in-person communities and events for that, but we just wanna be something that students, student athletes and pro athletes can reach out to 24/7.” Bull went on to say that it’s going to be a website where a lot of athletes can reach it through their own collegiate programs.
The $2,500 in prize money will help get the concept in motion, and Bull and Flack continue to research “other avenues” to move Anonymous Athlete forward, SUNY Oswego said. “Since we were probably [age] four or five, we were playing hockey and other sports like that, so we know it can get pretty hectic and just being in person all the time kind of is a weight on your shoulders,” Flack said in the release. “So having this avenue where you can be online and kind of be in the comfort of your own home while you’re having these conversations is very important as well.” He added, “Noah’s done some great research regarding the mental health practitioners, and he also found some grants that we would look into in order to build some revenue for this and get it really going.” With the Launch It program, teams receive help from alumni mentors, and this year’s winner benefited from the guidance of 1992 graduate Bridget Curran, SUNY Oswego said. “We had a quick Zoom call with her and she was just such a calming presence,” Flack said. “We both didn’t really know what to expect going into that final, and she just kind of sat us back, told us we had a good idea, we had good charisma, we had a good opportunity to present our product and I mean, she just made us feel so relaxed and we couldn’t thank her enough for what she’d done for us.”
About Launch It
SUNY Oswego’s School of Business coordinates Launch It, an annual student startup competition. This year’s Launch It contest included more than 100 business pitches and a semifinal round, after which judges selected six finalists.
Frintz, a photo print and direct-mail advertising firm based in Rochester, sponsored the $2,500 first-place prize, SUNY Oswego said. Besides Anonymous Athlete winning the top prize, Price Flores earned second prize and a $1,500 award for Aqua Avenger, which is a drone to extinguish fires. Wegmans donated the $1,500 award. Natasha Robinson won the third-place prize of $1,000 for Battery EMT, which is a battery repair/replacement service. Fulton Savings Bank provided the $1,000 third-place prize, per the SUNY Oswego news release. Jessica Metzner and Sriam Ventakassamy won the Fan Favorite prize of $500 for Spotlight (preventing online scams app for small business). The Fan Favorite was determined by audience voting.