The Launch Pad interviewed venture consultant and entrepreneur Colin Lee on his acceptance into the ACC InVenture Prize competition. 

ACC stands for The Atlantic Coast Conference – and the InVenture Prize opportunity allows exceptional entrepreneurs to present their ideas and win prizes. Teams of students represent a university and pitch their inventions or businesses in front of a live audience with a panel of judges. However this year, the competition will be held virtually and the winners will be announced on April 21, 2021 via PBS broadcast. Ideas compete for $30,000 in prizes distributed among 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. 

“Shark Tank isn’t the only place to watch the next generation of entrepreneurs showcase their wares. The Atlantic Coast Conference InVenture Prize competition is finding the best young innovative minds from universities.” – Georgia Public Broadcasting

Colin is presenting his idea, Munch Labs (See video: https://vimeo.com/530542666/7fa3a2ac0d) and we wanted to know the behind-the-scenes of the competition process and his company:

Q: What are you most excited for about the competition?

A: To see all the different competitors across ACC – not too many times you can get brightest people from all schools together – especially in a competitive conference.

Q: Have you participated in competitions similar to this?

A: I did one a few years ago with different businesses called the Reef competition. 

(There’s a number of different business competitions he’s competed in as well.)

Q: What are you pitching?

A: Munch Labs – it’s a restaurant in a box concept – which allows commercial kitchens to add an extra line of revenue to their business at a small cost. They operate different cloud restaurant concepts such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night. They ship everything a restaurant would need to operate, and they can generate upwards of $3-5,000 dollars per week.

Q: What is the format of the pitches?

A: The pitches are remote this year – it’s a unique format where everyone comes into the studio and the competition is filmed and broadcasted across PBS stations and the ACC. This year, pitches were filmed at home and submitted to an editing team. They then record a question and answer with judges, and finally it’s broadcasted live across PBS networks.

Q: What is the process like so far?

A: I already submitted all the videos and materials – next step would be judges’ question and answer session and then I will be watching broadcast live with everyone else to see the results.

Colin is excited to be representing the University of Miami ACC Pitch Competition. Tune in to PBS on April 21, 2021 at 7pm to see the results! Link: https://accinventureprize.com/

Also, check out Colin’s company https://munchlabs.co/