Bill Ash and Simon Shewmaker are quite busy these days.
The business partners are meeting with investors, engineers, potential customers and manufacturers to pitch their product.
They are not unlike any entrepreneur in the midst of getting a company off the ground, except that Ash and Shewmaker started their product and company in classrooms at the University of South Florida.
Through USF’s Center for Entrepreneurship, Ash and Shewmaker developed a microchip that senses biological and chemical weapons. They also created a business plan for their company, Pinellas Scientific, LLC, that will aim to sell the product to the military and first responders.
The Center for Entrepreneurship did for Ash and Shewmaker what it aims to do for an average 120 students a year — provide them with the skills and tools necessary to launch a business or improve their existing company.
“The program is a really nice way for students to not only learn the skills needed to launch a program, but put it into practice so that as they graduate, they are in good shape to capture best ideas for their venture and launch a business,” said Michael Fountain, director of the USF Center for Entrepreneurship. The program was ranked the fifth best entrepreneurial graduate program in the country by Entrepreneur magazine and the Princeton Review.
And Ash and Shewmaker are exploding with ideas.
“We’re really excited about the product, and the investors and potential customers we’re talking with are really excited about it as well,” said Ash, who is a physicist and developed the microchip sensor that has a patent pending.
The microchip is stored in what resembles a luggage tag and can be attached to military personnel and first responders to alert them to nearby toxic chemicals and weapons.
Before completing the USF entrepreneurship program this spring, Ash and Shewmaker presented Pinellas Scientific, then called MicroMech Optical, at the Rice Business Plan Competition at Rice University in Houston and the Fintech Business Plan Competition at USF.
A first-place finish at the Fintech competition gave the two a $7,500 prize that they invested in the company.
And the company has the ability to develop alternative products to reach a broader market.
“The alternative use is for implementing microchips into unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance use and sensor use of chemical weapons,” Shewmaker said.
He estimated that the microchip sensors may range in cost from $500 to $1,000 each, but neither man would disclose start-up revenue the company needs to manufacture the product.
“Our business model shows us starting to turn the corner in three years, and being a really good performing outfit in about five years,” Ash said.
USF entrepreneurship graduate students have launched 50 ventures since the program was founded six years ago. Fountain said about 50-60 students are accepted to the program each year, but he is seeing more interest as a result of the economic conditions.
“A lot of folks are realizing there’s not stability in long-term job propositions and have come to the realization I’m better off to start my own business, they’d be happier, do the things they want and like to do,” Fountain said. “Students coming in now are very well positioned because when there’s an upside of this economic downturn they’re going to be in great shape.”
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