The Booth School of Business’s College New Venture Challenge (CNVC) offers students a course without written tests or homework. Instead, it guides startup teams through a competitive pitch process where students seek investment for their startups.
Each winter quarter, “Building a New Venture,” taught by Professor Starr Marcello, brings in a cohort of students to develop and launch startups across industries ranging from financial services to food products. This quarter, the course included 15 teams, each including one to five enrolled students.
“The class is essentially divided into half with some traditional components like lectures and workshops on different key components of starting a business—customer discovery, developing a marketing strategy, building a financial model, learning how to give a pitch presentation—and then half of the class is the students actually pitching their venture to outside investors,” Marcello told the Maroon.
Students from a variety of backgrounds apply to the course, proposing startups that include producing consumer packaged goods, SaaS tools, and health and financial technology platforms.
Some participants focus on problems they have experienced firsthand. Fourth-year Luis Carillo founded Paytera, a peer-to-peer payments app focused on Mexican consumers, in July 2025. Growing up between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico, Carillo encountered challenges with digital money transfers in Mexico, including long verification processes and delays.
“It’s a process that is way too complicated and long to be able to send $5 to a friend,” Carillo said.
After researching the problem, Carillo developed a solution that he refined through the quarter with feedback from coaches and judges. “Overall, it gave me a very good understanding of how I should be looking at the startup world, as well as what my vision for Paytera should be in the long term,” he said.
One of CNVC’s advantages is access to resources and mentorship. The course is staffed by seven coaches with industry and academic experience, helping teams navigate challenges ranging from prototype development to financial planning. Students also receive feedback from Marcello and a panel of judges.
The pitching process is integral to CNVC, requiring students to craft a compelling appeal to investors.
“For a lot of people, what they’re building is clear to them, and they have this specific knowledge of their industry…. They have to figure out how to communicate that to an audience that is maybe not an expert,” said Kate Turvy, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at the Polsky Center and a CNVC coach.
Failure is an expected part of the process. Course facilitators emphasize developing resistance. “Sometimes, coming into an entrepreneurial accelerator and then dealing with the challenges that arise through the creative process of entrepreneurship can require a different set of skills than what [students] might have been exposed to before coming here,” Marcello said.
Despite the quarter’s short timeline, most teams adjust aspects of their business. The team behind Simply Chia, a frozen dessert company, made a significant pivot.
“Originally [the product] was a gourmet chia pudding company,” said second-year and co-founder Ewan Smith. “We realized that [the product] was going to be very difficult because it perishes super quickly, so we pivoted to doing Simply Chia, the world’s first chia-based frozen dessert.”
The program concluded on March 6 with final pitches featuring seven teams. Students presented to a panel of industry professionals and alumni, fielding questions about their ventures.
More than $330,000 was invested, with Paytera winning first place and an $85,000 award.
