ABINGTON, Pa. — Penn State Abington staged its annual “Shark Tank”-style business competition last week. Instead of celebrity judges, the sharks were two expert business advisers. The bait was provided by three teams, comprised of 15 Abington students minoring in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, as well as eight students from Hof University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
The organizers based the 2017 competition on new product ideas the Abington students developed in an entrepreneurial leadership course, ENGR310/MGMT397. The goal was to conceive and present a plan to launch the businesses simultaneously in the United States and Germany.
Judges offered feedback after each presentation. Larry Frank, a 1970 alumnus and vice president of small business administration lending at WSFS Bank, was joined by Malcolm McGraw, president of management consulting firm MEM & Associates, on the judging panel.
The competition was fast paced, just three days from start to finish. The Germans were barely wheels down in Philadelphia when they were teamed up with Abington students. They had to research and develop a business plan ,including marketing and financials, all while surmounting cultural and communication hurdles within their teams.
They hunkered down at the Penn State Center in downtown Philadelphia to complete their proposals and massage them into cogent presentations. Three faculty served as coaches/mentors/sounding boards: Dan Goldberg, lecturer in business; Gary Calore, coordinator for intercollegiate and interdisciplinary programs; and Maximilian Walter, professor of economics at Hof.
And then it was go time. The three teams revealed their products along with logos, compensation packages, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analyses, financial projections, and distribution plans. The German students added the European market perspective.