One team is working on a business that would turn gas into gasoline.
Judge Ann McFarland Burke V.P. of EDC, at the right, listens to Travis Wilson, explain the plan to create gasoline from natural gas whille Andrew Day of "iReggs," and Rachel Norris look on. Teammate Christina Rizer is not pictured. They won a competition recently at the University of Massachusetts. AHERST - Andrew Day calls himself an inventor entrepreneur.
But when the Longmeadow man approached South Hadley investor Paul Silva with his plan to create gasoline he was talking in terms of “mass and energy balances. I thought I was talking about business.” But to Silva it wasn’t a business at all.
He suggested that Day, now 41, enroll in the Entrepreneurship Initiative class at the University of Massachusetts, a class that Silva helps teach. The class is open to all undergraduate and graduate students in any major and to the people like Day who was neither.
Day did enroll and recently he and three students on his team just won a recent Entrepreneur Initiative competition.
But ironically they did not win any money. That was in part because of their own previous success They recently had garnered $12,000 in grants as well as some other smaller grants. At the competition, they won the accolades of a judge who wants to help them win other funding, Silva said. He added to that the $1,000 in prize money mattered more to the second place winner.
Day is the founding partner of Days’ Energy Systems and has developed a method of that will turn natural or methane gas into gasoline retaining 95 to 100 of the gas in the process. With his process, gas would cost $1.25 a gallon to produce, he said.
Day credits his teammates Travis Wilson, Rachel Norris and Christina Rizer and the class with teaching him how to make a business pitch. “I didn’t know how to sell, I didn’t know how to focus my ideas and which ones to bring forward.”
He said, “it was an amazing course.” He learned how to create an executive summary and elevator pitch that investors would and did listen to. “It doesn’t matter what gizmos” one is trying to sell, “you need to learn what an investor is looking for. I play with carbon and hydrogen” but he said no one understands or wants to listen.
“Students get guided through the process of critiquing business plans” of their fellow students and that in turn helps students “develop critical thinking skills” which helps them improve their own plans, said professor Robert Hyers. And networking is instrumental and so is meeting alumni.
Silva said the class is invaluable for anyone who wants to create a business. “This program is inspiring entrepreneurs.”
“When you start you don’t know who to talk to.” With the competition “you’re on stage, you’ve got to do it.” And the pitch comes before real investors, Silva said.
And that meant the outcome for Day was quite different than it was the first time he met Silva. Silva said “Andy’s a crazy inventor. A year ago no one would talk to him,” and now that’s all changed.
Others in the final competition included a business called Hhorsemanship