It’s a wrap! 2018 Creative Founder cohort completes the year

The 2018 Creative Founder experience has come to an end. The semester-long Night Cap incubator finished with Pitch Night, where the three teams pitched their businesses to an expert group of reviewers.

CCA’s NightCap cohort with mentors Yao Wang and Kate Rutter.

Pitch night was well-attended: 11 fabulous reviewers assessed the teams and provided feedback, and 15 wonderful friends, family and alumni provided support. All were there to celebrate the end of the session and share in food and fun and fellowship.

The pitches

Team Artboard

• Asher Ran, CEO
• Elvin Guoqiang Qin, CTO
• Ruitao Liang, CMO
• Tara Lin, CFO

Product: Pie helps parents find family activities tailored to children’s on-screen interests.

Demo video:

Pitch Deck:

Ask: $300,000.00

Pitch Night Results: 2 of 11 reviewers chose to fund. Partial funding from 1 reviewer. ($150,000). Full funding from 1 reviewer.

Team Elev8

• Jackie Jie Ji, CFO
• Jamie Catacutan, CEO
• Jimmy Jie Mi, CMO
• Taihong Chen, CTO

Product: Paveline is a series of mobility access maps for senior travelers.

Demo video:

Pitch deck:

Ask: $400,000.00

Pitch Night Results: 10 of 11 reviewers chose to fund. Partial funding from 8 reviewers. (ranging from $2,500 to $200,000). Full funding from 2 reviewers.

Team Hatch

• Anchi Hsin, CTO
• Claire Zhou, CMO
• Leo Zhang, CFO
• Nathalia Kasman, CEO

Product: Hatch is a peer-to-peer skills sharing app that encourages the learning journey by helping students.

Demo video:

Pitch deck:

Ask: $520,000.00

Pitch Night Results: 9 of 11 reviewers chose to fund. Partial funding from 8 reviewers. (ranging from $1,500 to $260,000). Full funding from 1 reviewer.

The Creative Founder course is filled with hard lessons…managing through mucky ambiguity, getting out of the building (and out from behind a digital screen), working as a true team, having difficult conversations and forging a path into unknown territory. Every member of the cohort overcame barriers, evolved as a designer and embraced the learning process. It was a magical (and super intense!) experience to be part of.

It’s been extraordinary to work with these entrepreneurial designers and to witness their journey. Thank you all for making the Creative Founder session a highlight of the year.

See you in 2019!

Creative Founder is an undergraduate course in the Interaction Design program at California College of the Arts. Big kudos to the brilliant and dynamic Christina Wodtke, the originator and instigator of this class.