A group of University of Colorado Boulder students won first place and received $50,000 during the New Venture Challenge to help fund their athletic supplement startup company.
The New Venture Challenge is an annual business competition for students to present their business plan and have the opportunity to win a portion of a $100,000 prize to help propel their startup. CLD-9 is the name of the first-place winning athletic supplement company created by CU Boulder students Eric Osicka, Jackson Cameron, Khushang Hirpara and Tanner Amaya.
Hirpara, CEO of CLD-9, said athletes spend tons of time and money researching and trying new supplements, which often don’t work for them or contain ingredients they don’t want to consume. Hirpara interviewed around 200 athletes and surveyed approximately 600 additional athletes and found that set formulations of supplements have ingredients and dosages that don’t work for everyone.
Hirpara said many supplement companies are essentially marketing companies that are “almost fraudulent” in making claims without a backing in science.
The solution is an algorithm that uses 30 ingredients that were the most efficacious based on hundreds of top research papers in athletic supplements, Hirpara said. Ingredients and dosages are customized to each individual based on routine, lifestyle, preferences, diet, goals and more.
Hirpara said he believes it’s his mission to change the supplementation industry by “putting the ethics back into supplementation through tech and science.”
Jane Miller, CEO of Rudi’s Rocky Mountain Bakery in Boulder, was one of the judges on the panel at the New Venture Challenge.
Miller said all the presentations were “amazing,” and there were certain key criteria the judges looked for when establishing the winner.
“There’s always good ideas, but then there’s good ideas that can go beyond the idea stage and actually become a business,” Miller said. “And we really felt this (CLD-9) could become a real business.”
Osicka is the chief technology officer and developer for CLD-9 and helps with technology infrastructure of the company. He said the validation of winning the competition meant even more than the money, providing feedback that the business idea is a good one.
“When we were all standing up on that stage, I don’t think any of us knew how much the check was actually for,” Osicka said. “We were just so happy that we had actually done something meaningful and we did it as a team.”
Miller said the concept behind CLD-9 was scalable, meaning it can become a bigger business and have a large impact. Miller also said the group had good traction on the business and consumer insights.
“They really can take their idea and make it big,” Miller said.
Hirpara said the prize money will primarily be used to develop a production line and have space to work in a facility to start producing the supplements. CLD-9 is preparing to pre-launch individually packaged supplements in September to get the product out and prove to potential investors it’s a product people want and need, Hirpara said.
“What’s really important is building a really good product that people love,” Hirpara said. “So at the end of the day, that’s always going to be the biggest goal.”
