Rentique wins “Spring Vol Court” pitch competition
Rentique, LLC, a start-up co-founded by Brandi King, won Tuesday night’s “Spring Vol Court” finale at the University of Tennessee (UT).
The UT student’s business concept is to create what King described as a “Cinderella Moment” for women between the ages of 15 and 35 by renting quality clothing at reasonable prices for special occasions. One of her target markets is UT’s new Sorority Village and the women who need dresses, but might only wear them one time.
Through Rentique, the students have an economical alternative to always appearing in a different dress for parties and other events.
King plans to officially launch her business in a “Mobile Fashion Truck,” actually a converted bread delivery vehicle, on August 12, the start of the sorority rush season. Her business plan currently allows a client to rent one dress a month for $25 and two a month for $35. King and her partner are launching the enterprise with 200 recently purchased dresses.
Second place in the “Spring Vol Court” competition went to Lucas Broderick who has co-founded Vi-Force Gaming Computers with Josh Clayton. In his pitch, Broderick explained that many console gamers want to move into PC-based gaming, but making a selection of the best device is a daunting exercise.
Vi-Force will not post a dizzying array of technical options on its website. Instead, it will ask the customer two fundamental questions – what do you want to do and how much can you afford? The co-founders already have a prototype of their gaming computer.
“Vol Court” is a twice-a-year series coordinated by the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ACEI) in UT’s Haslam College of Business. Sponsors include the UT Federal Credit Union; UT Research Foundation; Pershing Yoakley and Associates, sponsor of teknovation.biz; Morehous Legal Group, PLLC; and Launch TN.
