A team of Grove City College student entrepreneurs took first place in a national business simulation challenge with a product design, marketing strategy and sales plan that dominated the virtual market and outperformed the competition.
Entrepreneurship majors Eric Dudgeon ’21, Caleb Pfohl ’21, Hannah Sedam ’21 and Cameron Suorsa ’21 represented the College in the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization (CEO) Entrepreneurship Simulation Challenge last month.
The Challenge allows students to try their hands at running a new global startup venture. In the process, they identify market opportunities, design new products, create ad campaigns, manage a sales team, schedule production, and manage cash while trying to outpace their competitors.
The Grove City College team’s company, True Tread, a 3-D printed carbon-fiber bicycle company, excelled with every facet of the virtual Marketplace simulation. Everyone on the team had experience with the simulation thanks to Assistant Professor Kenneth E. Smith ’84, who uses it in an entrepreneurship course called Managing a Growing Enterprise, Suorsa said.
“We were able to focus our efforts on making decisions that allowed our venture, True Tread, to not only dominate in the simulation’s global market, but also have the highest performance out of the 17 teams competing from universities across the United States," Suorsa, president of the College’s CEO chapter, said. “The competition was a great opportunity for us to utilize the knowledge and skills we have developed from our time in the Entrepreneurship program.”
“I am so proud of these students for taking the initiative to commit a day during a busy semester to put to practice what they have learned in the classroom. It is such a good example of what we emphasize in our entrepreneurship program,” Smith said,
Each member of the Grove City College team received $125 and a Supreme Market Master certificate to display on Linkedin.
For more about Entrepreneurship at Grove City College, visit gccentrepreneurship.com.