2025 Ashland University ideaLabs judges and contestants

IdeaLabs contest is AU's version of "Shark Tank"

Published on March 25, 2025

College of Business and Economics

Ashland University has its own version of “Shark Tank” with its ideaLabs competition.

Like the popular business reality television show, entrepreneurs (more than 20 teams of AU students) recently made presentations of their business ideas to “sharks,” judges in this case, to not only win money to help their ventures but also the opportunity to move on to regional competition in Cleveland on April 8.

Twice a year, AU students have the opportunity to pitch their business ideas: IdeaLabs is held each spring and the Loryn Ankeny Ashland Pitch takes place in the fall.

IdeaLabs is a program of AU’s Burton D. Morgan Center for Free Enterprise.

For the past 20 years, the Burton D. Morgan Foundation has supported the annual IdeaLabs competition at Ashland and prizes are available through its generosity.

Tom Sudow is the director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.

Because the judges were so impressed with all the business pitches, Sudow said teams that didn’t win the prizes of $2,000 for first place, $1,000 for second, $750 for third and $500 for fourth in two categories (money maker and big idea) would each be awarded $100.

The annual program is supported by a number of faculty members at AU, many of whom helped judge the competition: Dan Fox, dean of the Dauch College of Business & Economics; Ken Brubaker, associate professor of sport management and marketing; Mark Nadler, associate professor of economics; Jeffrey Russell, associate professor of economics; and Dan Sullivan, associate professor of entrepreneurship. Another judge was Jaclyn Iarocci from the Veale Foundation, a charitable northeast Ohio organization that includes a youth entrepreneurship forum that encourages high school entrepreneurs.

Two freshmen win the top prizes, qualify for regional competition

Winning the top prizes and qualifying for the regional contest were two freshmen: Maddie Fleck in the money maker track and Bradley Schilling for the big idea category.

Fleck’s personal brand and influencer business, Maddie Fleck Golf, has had 15.51 million views between TikTok and Instagram since she started it her junior year of high school in Celina, Ohio, and now posts videos for half a dozen brands that pay her a salary to post about their brand and/or commissions from sales that come from her posts.

“Through all these brand partnerships, I have made over $11,600 to date,” said Fleck, an AU golfer who began her social media accounts to help her get recruited by college golf programs.

Schilling’s company, Recruit Connect, is an athletic recruiting platform that equips both coaches and players with the tools to navigate the complex and exhausting recruiting process easier. It includes athlete profiles, a school search tool and an AI recruiting assistant.

Schilling said he wished something like Recruit Connect was available to him when he was searching for somewhere to play college football, which he eventually found as a defensive end at AU.

Though he hasn’t made any money on his business idea that he first envisioned growing up in Granville, Ohio, Schilling said he hopes to launch it in the next few months with several “innovative features.”

“We are able to get revenue from so many different points because we can get a subscription from a coach, we can get a subscription from a player, we can get a subscription from an entire athletic department, an entire athletic team,” Schilling said. “The avenues for revenue are really broad and there are a lot of opportunities.”

2025 Ashland University ideaLabs audience for stage pitches

Schilling and Fleck were among the eight students who gave presentations called stage pitches to the judges and audience. They were the finalists determined by the judges after the elevator pitches by all the teams.

For the elevator pitches, each team had a table they could decorate to represent their business. Judges and audience members, which included AU President Jon Parrish Peede, visited the tables to hear the short pitches.

Money Maker finalists: Lucky Leap Boutique, Schneider Soccer Shots

The other two finalists for the money maker track were second-place Lucky Leap Boutique (Sarah Masuoka, Kathryn Pool and Garrett Baker) and third place Schneider Soccer Shots (Ella Schneider).

Lucky Leap Boutique makes bracelets and keychains for gymnasts that parents, other relatives and friends buy to encourage participants in gymnastic competitions.

“We are different from our competitors as we send our products to the athletes during competition,” said Masuoka, who presented without Pool and Baker, who had night classes and couldn’t attend any part of the contest.

While it’s focused on gymnastics, Masuoka, who grew up in Fairlawn, Ohio, doing gymnastics and still coaches it in Medina, Ohio, at Pinnacle Gymnastics, said Lucky Leap Boutique’s items haven’t all been gymnastic-related.

As Masuoka is an education major, the competitors didn’t have to be COBE students, but they did have to be undergraduate students. Teams could consist of one to five students and had to have a majority of the students be from AU.

Ella Schneider with AU President Jon Parrish Peede

Schneider, an AU women’s soccer player, gives private soccer lessons to individuals and groups during the summer around her hometown of Granville, Ohio, with her business, Schneider Soccer Shots.

She said she would like to eventually add an app that would connect families and young soccer players to college athletes for trainings, advice and feedback.

No other teams were entered in the money maker category.

Big Idea finalists: GlobeU, Golden Years and VolleyBack

In the Big Idea category, the fourth-place finisher, Lexi Pool, had a night class during the stage presentation portion of the contest, but was able to give an elevator pitch for her business, VolleyBack, an adjustable wooden board that rebounds volleyball hits, allowing someone to sharpen their volleyball skills without a practice partner.

AU Professor Tim Hinkel with Riley Suter and Nicole Garrett

Taking third was Golden Years, a user-friendly dating app designed specifically for seniors without the hassle of complicated technology, created by Nicole Garrett and Riley Suter.

International students and AU tennis players Ana Penteado (Brazil) and Gabriel Seminario (Peru) earned second place with GlobeU, a platform meant to simplify the recruiting process between college coaches and international athletes.