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On Wednesday night, at Ann Arbor SPARK’s fall Boot Camp celebration, young entrepreneurs and mentors gathered to hear 90 second pitches from this cadre of boot camp participants and 8 minutes presentation from the 3 finalists: QR Bars, Paxton Medical and Viryaa Studios.
Paxton Medical, an early stage company developing a disposable medical device allowing for efficient layout and securement of surgical tools during OR procedures won the contest and the associated benefits from SPARK. Good luck to the father and son team behind the venture.
This was the 25th edition of SPARK Boot Camp. As part of the process, Paxton Medical and the 2 other finalists benefited from a presentation coaching session from NEF coaches. The three teams present to a panel of judges, Alain Piette, Technology Practice Manager, MI-SBDC, Paul Riser, Managing Director, TechTown-Detroit and Skip Simms, Senior Vice-President, Ann Arbor SPARK.
During Boot Camp, http://www.annarborusa.org/start-here/entrepreneur-education-training/boot-camp, campers are taken through a rigorous process spanning a two-month period. Teams refine and develop their business idea through a customer discovery process with the help of a cadre of drill instructors. The goal of camp is to allow teams to fully understand customer pain points and to adjust their solutions accordingly . As SPARK Boot Camp Director Viktor Brandtneris likes to put it: Spend your resources building what your customers want, not what you think they need.
