When more than 11,000 rowers take to the Charles River each fall for the Head of the Charles Regatta, what happens when essential personal objects, like inhalers, get damaged or fall overboard?
That’s the kind of scenario Caroline Driscoll, MCAS ’27, imagined when she dreamed up Flobag, “the world’s first waterproof trackable and floatable bag,” she says. Her product pitch won Driscoll first place, a $600 prize, and one of two crowd favorite awards at the Elevator Pitch Competition, hosted this fall by the Carroll School of Management’s Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship.
Caroline Driscoll MCAS '27
Driscoll’s passionate pitch immediately caught the attention of the audience in the auditorium of 245 Beacon Street. It also stood out in a crowded field of entries for the annual competition, which is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Fifty individuals from across the University applied for a chance to pitch their startup ideas to a panel of Boston College alumni and win cash prizes—that’s a 25 percent increase in applicants from 2022, noted Jameson Shi ’24, an executive board member of the Shea Center’s student leadership team, .
From a video game player feedback platform to beeswax-based mineral sunscreen, the submitted business ideas were evaluated by Start@Shea, and 30 concepts made it to the semifinal round. Ultimately, 10 students got the opportunity to pitch live at the event finals on October 17. Each 60-second pitch was followed by a two-minute Q&A session with a panel of judges, including Peter Bell ’86, a senior advisor at Amity Ventures; Tom Jennings, MCAS ’95, managing director of Summit Partners; and Emily Kaiser ’14, an associate at Holland & Knight and an adjunct professor at the Carroll School.Â
“Nearly 50 million Americans participate in watersports across the country,” said Driscoll, a communications and economics double major, as she introduced Flobag. That’s her concept for a thermoplastic polyurethane bag available in multiple sizes and lined with the same “unsinkable” marine foam used in Boston Whalers, all to keep important items dry, safe, and easy to locate. She finished her pitch with a flourish, confidently adding the tagline, “Stay afloat with Flobag,” before gamely answering the judges’ questions. They asked her about customization, manufacturing costs, and what made her product unique—which, as she explained, is the full integration of a tracking device, rather than using external tracking devices like AirTags.
Mitch Clark, MBA '24, receiving the second place award
“It was one of the most competitive years to date,” Shi said of this year’s event. The energy in the auditorium reflected that spirit with an enthusiastic audience quick to applaud and cheer on participants as they shared their business ideas. One of Start@Shea’s signature annual events, the competition featured two groups of five student pitches bookending an intermission performance from the Boston College Dynamics a cappella group. There were two crowd favorite awards, one award going to an individual in the first half of the night’s pitches and one going to a presenter in the second half of the evening.
A good sense of humor helped Mitch Clark, MBA ’24, score the second crowd favorite award, but it was his startup idea that earned him second place and a $400 prize for his concept, Inviscid Impact, a concrete tech company.
“We talked about some fascinating industries tonight, I would like to ruin that by talking about concrete,” said Clark, drawing laughs. Explaining that concrete is on track to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2030, he emphasized the untapped potential of new ventures in the market—that’s where Inviscid Impact comes in. One big problem with concrete has to do with transportation: If the material gets too hot or cool, or loses too much moisture in transit, it becomes unusable and needs to be disposed of. Clark envisioned a regulator device that could be attached to concrete transport trucks, actively monitoring and adjusting conditions to ensure no concrete goes to waste.
Bo Brainerd, MCAS ’25, secured third place and a $300 prize with her pitch for a new kind of dating app. Her app, Ophelia, would offer what she called “a revolutionary recruitment-based algorithm” that matches people based on their top three date location preferences and times. Brainerd, who is majoring in philosophy with a management and leadership minor, went on to say that Ophelia would take care of the first-date planning by automatically reserving a ticket, a table, or a seat. “No need to navigate OpenTable or Yelp,” she added.
Jere Doyle '87 and competition judge Peter Bell '86 posed with the night's winners.
As the judges went to deliberate before revealing the evening’s winners, they left the room with huge smiles. “Everything you are all creating is phenomenal and extremely viable,” Kaiser commented. Jere Doyle ’87, Popolo Family Executive Director of the Shea Center, also praised the efforts of participants, acknowledging how each student “worked really, really hard” to make it to that point.
As the night wrapped up, Driscoll was still beaming ear-to-ear. “Winning the competition as a freshman is truly surreal,” she said. “I’m excited to begin this journey of developing the company and am so blessed to have had this experience.”
