University of Michigan Students Pitch Us Their Startups | $5000 Prize Money (#396)

TL;DR

Five University of Michigan student startups pitch to Sam and Sean for a $5,000 prize. The winner is Internet Activism, a nonprofit that rapidly builds software (e.g., a COVID-19 tracker used by 600M people, an Airbnb-for-refugees site) for humanitarian crises.

Key insights

• The barcode has not been upgraded in decades; RFID tags (like the “One Tag” from Area) are now cheap enough (pennies per unit) to replace barcodes and enable autonomous checkout, inventory tracking, a
• A company’s biggest challenge is often distribution and sales, not technology. The hosts repeatedly note that the tech already exists; the hard part is getting stores to adopt it.
• Young founders (19–21) have a narrow window (age 18–24) where older executives will want to mentor them, invest, or give them introductions simply because they are “young hustlers” – this should be ex