by Diego Fernandez
The Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation announces the five Spartan startup teams selected for its fourth Momentum summer cohort.
On May 7, the Burgess Institute will kickstart 2024's Momentum cohort, which will run through June 13. The annual six-week pre-accelerator is a competitive program that provides financial and mentorship resources to advance emerging MSU-based student startups and prepare them for more intensive accelerators.
Momentum's 2024 Cohort
Out of a competitive applicant pool, these five MSU startup teams will embark on their Momentum summer journey:
Dilemaa
Founder: Benjamin Kim, The School of Hospitality Business
Dilemaa is a vibrant social media platform that revolutionizes decision-making by leveraging the collective wisdom of a global community. It focuses on light-hearted dilemmas for an entertaining and interactive experience.
Player’s Paradise eSports Bar & Lounge
Founder: Jordyn Wilcox, School of Journalism
Player’s Paradise eSports Bar and Lounge is not just for competitive eSports, but to foster a vibrant and inclusive community for professional gamers and eSports fans alike.
Apprese
Co-founders: Duy Nguyen, Eli Broad College of Business; Jogi Katende, College of Social Science
Apprese is a platform that lets college students rent professional attire from and to each other, helping them save money, save time, and even earn money.
BRCĒ LLC
Founder: Madhav Aggarwal, College of Engineering; Tanvi Gadamsetti, College of Engineering
BRCĒ LLC is a sneaker accessories and athletic performance-wear brand that aims to revolutionize the sneaker scene and athletic gear with cutting-edge innovation in performance-wear, lace technology, and sustainable fashion.
ThirstyGirl
Founder: Megan Halpin, College of Natural Science
ThirstyGirl specializes in innovative beauty tools, offering an inversible sponge with additional grooves to tackle nearly the entire makeup routine.
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Momentum is a six-week journey during which each team receives industry-specific mentorship, focused work time on their startups, and $5,000 in grant funding. Applications for the program are open only to current MSU student teams active in the Burgess Institute's Discovery or Launch venture creation programs.
Lori Fischer, the director of operations at the Burgess Institute, is enthusiastic about the new cohort. "We’re thrilled to welcome the 2024 participants to Momentum," Fischer remarks. This program is about more than just building businesses; it’s about building people. By participating and engaging with mentors, peers, and the broader entrepreneurial community, each entrepreneur develops a belief in themselves and their vision, which is critical for their growth and success."
Elliot Smith, Momentum alumnus and founder of Motmot, reflects on his experience in the program. “Momentum was the beginning of owning an entrepreneurial mindset.” The 2024 Burgess New Venture Challenge Champion went on to highlight the opportunities the program afforded him to engage with venture capitalists and angel investors, as well as having wholesome conversations with fellow entrepreneurs living the daily ethos. “It was an injection into a new world that I hadn’t known existed prior to that.”
When asked what advice he would offer to the startups entering this year’s accelerator, Smith shared that they should “be vulnerable and teachable. Entrepreneurship isn’t easy, but you can make it easier by breaking down the walls and being a sponge for learning and experience.”
This year’s cohort is up for the challenge. “We believe in growing by challenging ourselves,” says Jogi Katende, co-founder of Apprese. “Rather than spending the start of the summer reading about entrepreneurship, we are excited to meet and work with talented people who are passionate about the subject.”
Weekly guest speakers and networking events in Chicago and Grand Rapids provide fertile ground for building professional relationships that can open doors and lead to opportunities.
Matthew Rogien, co-founder of Triple4 and third-place finisher in the 2024 Burgess New Venture Challenge, points out those networking events as his favorite part about the accelerator. “The experiences we shared brought us close together,” he explains. “The program fostered lasting relationships within the program as well as providing the guidance for our necessary next steps.”
The primary goal of Momentum is to prepare its early-stage teams to apply to competitive accelerators like Conquer, TechStars, and Y Combinator, with a more polished business model and a honed entrepreneurial mindset. Paul Jaques, the managing director of venture creation at the Burgess Institute, who launched Momentum in 2021, sums it up: "Momentum is about intense focus and setting achievable goals. Over the six-week period, this focus drives our teams to make significant progress, bolstered by the accountability to themselves, the program, and one another during weekly check-ins.”
Momentum has seen its share of triumphs. Aman Thamminana, a co-founder of Odin Classroom, which secured second place in the 2024 Burgess New Venture Challenge, credits the program with helping his team develop a structured framework for setting and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). Similarly, Paul Reiss of Protein Pints, 2024’s first-place winner at the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition, said, “Momentum helped us through a critical stage by providing resources and mentorship. Ultimately, we ended up launching Protein Pints in our first Meijer store near the end of the program.”
This year’s cohort is incredibly driven with some of the founders already citing their strategic goals. Apprese aims to launch its platform on Michigan State’s campus after the program. BRCĒ envisions becoming a more well-positioned brand in the sneaker and fashion industry. Meanwhile, Dilemaa is focused on launching a fully developed MVP on the Google Play Store. tranSponge aims to initiate its first product shipment.
We wish our 2024 Momentum Cohort a fantastic summer. Follow along with the Cohort’s journey on our social media: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Applications to participate in Momentum's 2025 Summer Cohort will open in early March 2025.