Erez Yarden, a senior at the Fox School of Business, impressed the judges at Wednesday’s Be Your Own Boss Bowl with his pitch for SourceFill, a company that handles manufacturing and supply chain logistics for small companies.
Nour Alkhuffash pitched her innovative business idea at the Be Your Own Boss Bowl finale on Wednesday, April 15.
Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg
The rise of social media, and platforms like Etsy and Depop, has made it easier than ever for small brands to build an audience and promote their products. But in order for these brands to scale, they often need to navigate a complex global supply chain rife with language barriers, time-zone differences and a steep learning curve.
Thankfully, SourceFill, the undergraduate track winner at the 28th annual Be Your Own Boss Bowl (BYOBB), is here to help.
Created by Erez Yarden, a senior majoring in management information systems at the Fox School of Business, SourceFill acts as a middleman between brands and factories, handling tasks such as finding suppliers, negotiating quotes, managing production timelines and compiling key supply chain information in one central platform.
“We enable brands to manufacture globally without building their own supply chain team,” Yarden told the panel of judges at Wednesday’s finale event. “Factories around the world speak many languages. We speak them all.”
Started in 1997, BYOBB has evolved into one of the nation’s most lucrative pitch competitions for young entrepreneurs. It is hosted by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute (IEI) at Fox, but the competition is open to undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni from each of Temple’s 17 schools and colleges.
Participants attend workshops with guest speakers, mentors and coaches who help them develop their pitching and entrepreneurial skill sets.
The competition culminates in a final event where eight finalists, four each from the undergraduate track and upper track (comprised of graduate students and alumni) present a seven-minute pitch to a panel of judges. Participants compete for more than $100,000 in cash prizes and in-kind service packages, including $10,000 for the winner of each track and an additional $40,000 for the grand prize winner.
“Across Temple, you’ll find thinkers. You’ll find builders. You’ll find risk takers,” said Chip Hunter, dean of Fox. “They’re working hard in classrooms, study spaces and research labs, and they’re here at the IEI trying to learn and get something done. We are fortunate to have a front row seat to all of this great work happening across the university.”
At Wednesday’s finale, aspiring entrepreneurs pitched a wide range of innovative ideas: an all-day hydration alternative, a community-focused produce distribution system, an app that digitizes and brings ticket stubs to life. Finalists made their case for why their business idea is needed and how the competition prize money will help take their business to the next level.
They then fielded questions from a panel of judges consisting of Solon Moreira, associate professor of entrepreneurship and strategy and Charles Ezra Beury Fellow at Fox; Mumbi Dunjwa, founder and CEO of Naturaz; and Vincent Perez, founder and managing partner of Longview Partners.
Yarden impressed the judges with his pitch for SourceFill, which addresses real issues facing small businesses. Through more than 30 interviews with e-commerce and product brands, Yarden noticed a pattern. These brands were dealing with slow timelines, poor communication, and a general lack of control and organization.
“One of the biggest weaknesses is fragmentation. Messages are scattered, quotes are inconsistent and updates go missing,” Yarden said. “SourceFill solves this through one central platform. We built a client portal to give brands visibility across their projects, documents, messages and payment flow, all in one place.”
The upper track and grand prize winner went to Phyll, a real-time intelligence app that monitors the condition of roads, bridges and other kinds of infrastructure. The idea was presented by Ethan Berg, FOX ’20.
Phyll utilizes video footage already being captured from dash cams, traffic cameras, drones and other sources to create a map that updates in real-time and helps users identify infrastructure conditions in their area.
“The way that we maintain our infrastructure is very reactive,” Berg said. “It’s a squeaky wheel method—you don’t fix it until it’s broke, and it causes a big enough problem that somebody complains enough to get it fixed.”
Berg pointed out that we’re already collecting the data needed to monitor infrastructure conditions.
“Dash cams alone are capturing 30 billion miles of roadway every single week,” he said. “That’s 750 times all of Earth’s roads combined. And yet, we’re throwing it out.”
Phyll also took home the Digital Innovation Award sponsored by Temple’s Institute for Business and Information Technology.
Mor, an all-day hydration alternative to energy drinks and products like Liquid IV, won the People’s Choice Award, voted on by BYOBB attendees.
“This year’s Be Your Own Boss Bowl was especially exciting, with the largest in-person audience we’ve seen since COVID,” said Neil Johnston, director of IEI accelerator programs. “Being part of the process behind the scenes, I get to witness just how much effort goes into refining these seven-minute pitches, and this year's final presentations were incredibly polished. It truly takes a village—our faculty, mentors, reviewers, pitch coaches and advisors all contribute to getting our finalists to this level and we cannot thank them enough.”
Learn more about IEI and follow them on Instagram for news and updates related to the BYOBB. If you'd like to get involved with the IEI, send them an email at iei@temple.edu.
