2020 Business Plan Competition

Winning Teams

Congratulations to the 2020 winning teams!

First place ($25,000): Matte Black Lounges
Second place ($7,500): farmVal
Third place ($5,000): PediCure

Finalists

Team Dream Haüs is a platform that incorporates homebuyers’ tastes and preferences through a visual search to save realtors and home-buyers time and money. Members: Chris Gartrell ’20 (SHA), Oren Michaely ’20 (Eng)

Team farmVal makes the process of growing wine smarter, more efficient, and more reliable through a combination of Cornell PhD patented research, machine learning, and industry expertise. Members: Ashley Bacalso MILR ’20, Shiang-Wan Chin MEng ’19, PhD ’22, Tamara Sato ’22 (SHA)

Team LayOP aims to leverage analytics tools and big data to help hospitality property managers and employees make informed decisions to optimize their service and increase revenue. Members: Armaan Goyal ’22 (SHA), Aditya Narayanan ’21 (A&S), Ananth Palaniappan ’21 (Eng), Abhinav Prasad ’21 (A&S)

Team Matte Black Lounges is focused on bringing modern airport lounges to currently underserved, mid-market, domestic airports. Members: Shucen Ding MMH ’20, Yi Xuan Huang ’20 (SHA), Lyon Li ’23 (SHA), and Gabe Trumbo MBA ’21

Team PediCure is a toenail trimmer that empowers elderly adults to reclaim independence in their grooming experience. Our device is to be sold to caretakers. Members: Jordan Gorelick MEng ’20, Bryan Hyland ’21 (SHA), Jialin Ke ’20 (HumEc), Jessica Tao ’20 (CALS), Joshua Zhu ’20 (CALS)

The 10^th Annual, and first ever virtual, Hospitality Business Plan Competition was held on April 17, 2020. The Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship would like to thank all of our participating teams for their hard work and flexibility as we navigated this new format.

Watch the 2020 Competition here!

News

Cornell Chronicle: Airport lounge idea wins hospitality business plan competition (April 23, 2020)

Thank you to our Sponsors:

Title Sponsor

Sandy Solmon, P ’15
Sweet Street Desserts

Platinum Sponsors

Stanley Sun ’00 (SHA), MBA ’05
Bob Alter Family

Silver Sponsors

Elizabeth Shingleton Glomsrud ’00 and Barbara Foote Shingleton ’75