Catalyst for Creativity: Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Club Promotes Startups with Space, Resources and Community

Catalyst for Creativity: Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Club Promotes Startups with Space, Resources and Community

Maxim Lavrov shares his thoughts during the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Startup Launch Weekend last November. The annual event is a 54-hour activity, held at the HotHouse, that fosters new business ideas. (Photo: Charlie D’Amico)

After coming down with what he calls the “frat flu” in September of 2022, Matthew Reis boiled a concoction of pineapple skins, ginger, peppercorns and other ingredients into a tea.

For Reis, it was just a home remedy he created as an alternative to medicine, which makes him drowsy. But months later, while attending Startup Launch Weekend, an event run by the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) club, it evolved into something much bigger: a business project called Tè Piña.

“I started making the tea in September of 2022 after seeing a TikTok about the health benefits that can be obtained through boiling pineapple skin and drinking the resulting concoction,” said Reis, a business administration major. “I did some research and found many different recipes available to use as a basis for the idea. Over time, I added ingredients and toggled with their ratios to make the product we have today.”
Reis credits Cal Poly Entrepreneurs as a major catalyst to the development and refining of his idea and getting his business started.

“CPE helped with motivation, inspiration, and encouragement prior to the process of getting my business started,” Reis said.

Cal Poly Entrepreneurs is Cal Poly’s largest interdisciplinary club on campus and a place for like-minded individuals of all backgrounds, majors, and perspectives to come together and bring creativity and drive to life.

“By having weekly guest speakers talk about their experiences with entrepreneurship, I was able to see the passion and light in the eyes of people who battle risk and uncertainty in order to create value in society,” Reis said.

Entrepreneurs speak with gusto and energy, he elaborated.

“Being able to witness their passion first-hand in the CPE meetings is what inspired me and set me on track for developing my own business,” Reis said.

Tè Piña is going strong, with the product selling successfully still today. But Reis is just one of many CPE success stories. The club challenges the preconceived notion that entrepreneurship is only accessible to those who have proven to be creative thinkers and problem solvers – people who dive into challenges and make their own way.

We create the space, and it’s up to the students’ own ambition and drive to start those conversations and make the most out of it.”

Jack Pendleton, President, Cal Poly Entrepreneuers

According to business administration major and CPE club president Jack Pendleton, being an entrepreneur in the Cal Poly community can look like that, but it can also be so much more.

“If you view entrepreneurship in San Luis Obispo as a funnel, CPE is the beginning of the funnel,” Pendleton said. “My goal, and our goal as a club, is to illustrate what entrepreneurship can – and does – look like.”

In all that they do, CPE maintains the messaging that entrepreneurship does not have to exist as a foreign idea that one must already have all the resources needed in order to approach. The club sets out to prepare students to be entrepreneurs, but there is no single path, no preordained formula to foster this growth.

The organization provides students with an abundance of opportunities for entrepreneurial exploration, many of which are intertwined with the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE).

The CIE helps students and community members acquire the tools, develop the skills and cultivate the mindset of an entrepreneur. The organization hosts programs like entrepreneurship forums, faculty fellowships, and elevator pitch competitions, just to name a few.

“The biggest thing is that it creates a space for people to meet like-minded individuals,” Pendleton said. “We create the space, and it’s up to the students’ own ambition and drive to start those conversations and make the most out of it.”

“All of our programming is either inspired by or collaborative with CIE, Pendleton said. “A lot of what we do is simplified versions of their programming.”

One successful CIE program is called the Summer Accelerator program, where the CIE give students a $10,000 grant to build a business over the summer.

“It’s a really cool program that companies have come out of,” Pendleton said.

While CPE can’t afford to give out $10,000 grants– and certainly not to upward of ten different teams – the club puts together smaller competitions, such as their biggest event of the year: Startup Launch Weekend.

“It’s basically a weekend long version of Summer Accelerator,” Pendleton said. “Everything is very much condensed and simplified a little bit. But everybody comes in with an idea on Friday night and then by Sunday groups have formed, and people are pitching to a panel of judges.”

Last year, the club presented students just over $2,000 for their startups.

“It’s just it’s a cool way for people to kind of dip their toes in it,” Pendleton said. “It’s still the beginning of the funnel. And then if they’re interested or if they really are convicted about this business that they’ve built for a weekend, then they can continue to build that over the course of the year.”

Perhaps the most exciting thing about this opportunity is the exponential growth that takes place over the course of a mere few days. In the beginning of the weekend, ideas are formed, and by the end, visions are fully developed.

“By Sunday, not only are students super passionate about the idea that they’ve come up with, but they’ve convinced a group of five or six other people to also be just as interested in investing in it,” Pendleton said.

This theme of openness extends beyond programs like Startup Launch Weekend, and into the culture of the club as a whole. This strength starts, it seems, with the range of characters and personalities involved.

“When it comes to the people involved, it’s kind of a bell-curve,” Pendleton said. “You get people who are very outspoken who will tell you their life story within two minutes, and everything they are working on,” Pendleton said. “On the other hand, there are also wallflowers who sit and observe and share more once they’re comfortable. And then you have the people in between; not necessarily, gung-ho about entrepreneurship, maybe just showed up for the pizza.”

The structure of the club is inherently informal. CPE offers a very relaxed and casual forum for students to listen to and connect with speakers at weekly club meetings. This way, the organization empowers students to derive meaning from the club meeting in whatever way best suits them.

This relaxed culture acts as a catalyst to continuous sharing of ideas.

“Because it’s so relaxed, people can feel comfortable,” Pendleton said. “At least for me, I was able to feel comfortable standing at the front of the room and talking about my ideas.