Gorilla CEO hosts pitch competition

The Gorilla CEO student chapter hosted a pitch competition on Tuesday, Nov. 27 in the Overman Student Center at the Crimson and Gold Ballroom.

The pitch competition is the first planned and hosted by the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (Gorilla CEO) that strives to promote entrepreneurship among college students and the Gorilla CEO believes that “there’s so much that PSU students can give out to promote business ideas and concepts.”

The CEO’s goal is to help promote and encourage students to be entrepreneurial and start businesses. The competition is an opportunity for students to showcase their ideas or the work some students have and want to showcase to people on and off campus through this event and build relations and connections for future promotions and ideas.

“There’s the trade show where they can show everything to the public and talk to people and sell things if they have any products or services and there’s the competition which is running at the same time where they’re pitching to judges and getting scored on the presentation skills in marketing for their ideas, businesses, products and things like that,” John Botts, graduate student in business and president of Gorilla CEO, said.

The event presented two awards for the trade show. There was the “People’s Choice” and there was the award that the judges gave out.  The “People’s Choice” was for anyone that wanted to check out the different tables and displays and they received a token and voted on their favorite display. The judge’s choice was given out by CEO’s hand-selected faculty and staff judges. They got to choose their favorite display vote as well.  For the competition, there’s a judge’s rubric to grade people on their presentation skills, their understanding of the financials of their projects, products, art work, and business ideas.      Students participating in this event didn’t need to have to have an actual business to represent but had to present an idea that is possible to do.

“The money that they win, they don’t have to invest it in their projects, but they can if they choose to. I think it’s something really important to bring to campus you know and give people more inspiration to go out and do what they love or always wanted to try out,” Ana Leyva, sophomore in international business and business management, said.

The event provided the students with a space to feel free in a secure environment to share their ideas and win some prize money.

“This is the first time that we’re doing this and we’re very excited. We have about 15 participants and so… It’s going to be a very nice to see everyone’s work and ideas,” Emilia Cardenas, graduate student in international business, said.