By Alex Sorrells / The Jambar
The third-annual Penguin Shark Tank competition took place March 20 and allowed student entrepreneurs to give presentations to a panel of judges, or “sharks,” for a chance to win a portion of the $10,000 prize pool.
Cadence McStowe, freshman nursing major, and Noah Bowman, sophomore nursing major, won the grand prize for Best Established Business. Nabayt Kibreab, junior dual major in computer science and economics, took home the grand prize for Best Business Idea.
McStowe, founder of Tallow Talk, said she had problems with her skin and finding an in-store product that worked for her felt impossible. While listening to a podcast, McStowe heard about what would soon become the staple ingredient in its product and the remedy she was searching for — beef tallow.
“I heard somebody talking about beef tallow and I like staying holistic — trying natural stuff — so I ended up trying it and it worked really, really wonderfully,” McStowe said. “I just started blending it with other oils, and basically, a year later, it led to Tallow Talk.”
Bowman said balancing classes, work and a new business is difficult, which led him to partner with McStowe to help ease the stress and monotonous work that follows a business startup.
McStowe said the prize money will allow them to establish their business and invest in quality ingredients, since organic ingredients can be expensive.
“We’d be able to focus on advertising too, and just like, different product development. Get into more of making things like soaps and lip scrubs and other skincare products,” Bowman said.
Betty Jo Licata, interim dean of Williamson College of Business Administration, said applicants submitted a short “pitch deck” video, which covered key aspects of the business. Once the submission deadline passed, finalists were chosen based on their videos.
“Finalists received mentoring from our consultants at the Small Business Development Center,” Licata said. “They also did a dry-run presentation where faculty provided them with feedback on their presentation.”
Kibreab received the grand prize in Best Business Idea for Velora, a stock trading platform that analyzes market trends with the help of AI, to create predictions based on years of market, company and economic data.
“[It] basically takes 10 years in historical stock data, sentiment analysis, economic indicators and company revenue, and then it trains the module and then gives its prediction,” Kibreab said.
Kibreab said the idea started as a research project, but she became unsatisfied being the only person who could access the software. This led her to enter the competition to make the data available to others.
“Within the next six months, I’m trying to launch the beta version of the website,” Kibreab said.
The Burton D. Morgan Foundation promised funding to the Shark Tank competition for the first three years, which means this was the final year of funding. Although they contributed a majority of the prize money, Licata said other potential sponsors are starting to gain interest.
“We have an ongoing commitment from Patrick Burgan for the John Burgan prize,” Licata said. “There are already people expressing interest in sponsoring prizes for next year, so I am very confident that we’ll have even more prize money for 2026.”