Shrink it and pink it is the one-size-that-never-actually-fits philosophy behind mainstream women’s golf equipment. When manufacturing and mechanical engineering junior Katherine “Katie” Calderon made this horrifying realization while working in the golf industry, she created her own golf brand for women by women.
Enter Club Girl Golf, a golf brand that's creating the change women’s golf needs, says Katie, who came to Texas A&M University knowing she wanted to design golf clubs. After designing and 3D printing a putter, she recalls how her brand blew up on social media. In 2023, she competed in Aggie PITCH, an annual business pitch competition hosted by the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship, and won $7,500 in funding that would kick-start Katie’s dream into reality.
While balancing classes, extracurricular responsibilities and, in some cases, a job or four, some students may think that starting a small business isn’t feasible while in college. That’s when the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship lends a helping hand with the Aggie PITCH program. Founded in 2018, Aggie PITCH allows current and former Texas A&M students to compete for prize money to start or grow a business.
The McFerrin Center’s goal is to “support and grow the Aggie entrepreneurial ecosystem,” which motivated McFerrin Center Entrepreneurship Executive Director Blake Petty to create the program after hearing about Texas A&M students winning the Rice Business Plan Competition, one of the oldest business competitions in the state.
“Aggie PITCH is a resource and network for all of [Texas A&M's] student entrepreneurs,” Blake says. “Our secret sauce is 20-plus years of building an entrepreneurial network of primarily Aggies. We serve as the Rolodex or database for our current students and connect them.
“We realized there was a big gap between the Ideas Challenge at Texas A&M and the Rice Business Plan Competition,” Blake says. “So, we wanted to put our own campus competition together to help us find more teams that should be groomed, matured, helped [and] supported.”
The Ideas Challenge allows students to pitch business ideas and concepts to judges without starting a business. It’s a way for students to explore entrepreneurship without a heavy commitment, Blake says.
Aggie PITCH is the next step for developing a business idea into an actual business and the point where students and contestants begin fleshing out their concepts into concrete ideas and strategies to service consumers.
The Aggie Angel Network is a step further beyond. When a business is ready to launch or has been established, owners of small businesses or startups will pitch their businesses to investors who want some kind of equity or stake in the company in return. It’s a true Shark Tank-style pitch, Blake says.
“It’s an Aggie [business] pipeline that ends with the Aggie Angel Network,” Blake says. “All along the way [students] can be supported, groomed and assisted and might be able to get some cash.”
The unique thing about Aggie PITCH isn’t its Shark Tank-style approach. While these awards can have an immense impact, Blake notes that even just applying to compete in Aggie PITCH gives young entrepreneurs the chance to think critically about and develop their business ideas.
“The great thing about our programs is that we give everybody the chance to try before you buy,” Blake says. “You can [be an entrepreneur] as a student and fail safely through our programs.”
While the Ideas Challenge and Aggie PITCH are not entirely exclusive to Texas A&M students, they do require that a Texas A&M student be on the team and do most of the presentation because these programs are built to serve Aggie entrepreneurs, Blake says.
The Aggie Angel Network is a third-party organization founded by Blake that is affiliated with the McFerrin Center of Entrepreneurship. While the Angel Network is made up of Aggie investors, anyone is allowed to put their fledgling business to the test and pitch it to investors.
“We prioritize Aggie deals, especially if it’s a student-run business,” Blake says. “But you don’t
have to be an Aggie. We’re looking for people looking for investment in very early-stage business opportunities.”
Getting up in front of a crowd and having to present her business idea and answer questions from the audience about her plans pushed her confidence to the next level, Katie says.
The experience she’s gained from Aggie PITCH has allowed her to push her business to the next level, Katie says. The prize money she’s won has allowed her to start conducting test trials of her new line of women’s golf clubs and planning pre-orders.
“It’s because of A&M and the programs here that my business has made and tested prototypes and is starting to look at launch dates,” Katie says. “We’re at the stage where with a little bit more funding and testing, we should have no issue launching by fall 2024.”
Katie did several customer interviews with local female golfers when developing her business and plans to do her main phase of testing at Miramont Country Club in Bryan before doing a minor global test. With pre-orders potentially available at the testing events, Katie looks forward to a successful online launch of Club Girl Golf’s first golf club.
“There hasn’t been a single person who I’ve reached out to [in the Brazos Valley] that has turned me down when asking for help,” Katie says.
If a student has an idea for a business, the best thing they can do is apply to Aggie PITCH, Katie says. Being able to start cementing a business idea and talk about it will help develop any business concept significantly.
“I don’t think I’d have a business if it weren’t for Texas A&M,” Katie says. “The money from Aggie PITCH let me pay for a provisional patent and a 3D printer. The only reason I can think about launching [Club Girl Golf] is because of Aggie PITCH.”
The 2024 Aggie PITCH competition will be on Monday, April 15. The application process is short and relatively simple, Blake says. The application asks teams to provide their business idea, the problem their business seeks to solve, how it aims to solve it, their business model and its target market, consumers and competitors. Competitors submit a video of a 60-second elevator pitch explaining their business.
For more information, visit mcferrin.tamu.edu/program/aggie-pitch.
