Two Minutes to Hook the Room: Calvin Students Pitch Big Ideas at Record-Setting PitchUp
“Ah … I can’t do this anymore,” exclaimed Chukwuemeka Anayo-Ezikeoha from the Covenant Fine Arts Center Recital Hall stage. He then calmly continued, “Meet Bella, the hardest working student, always up until 2 a.m. It’s not because she’s lazy, she just doesn’t have the right strategy for this one class. And what really breaks my heart is that a student who aced that class is down the hall, is willing to help, but Bella and that student will never meet.”
“Everyone smile for a picture really quick,” instructed Hannah Kok as she picked up her DSLR camera and pointed it toward the 100-plus people seated in front of her in the Recital Hall. Checking the image, she says, “Awesome, looks great.” She then continues, “So we live in a world full of photos, but finding the right place to take them is harder than it should be … I’m a photographer, I’ve been running images by Hannah since my freshman year of high school and for the past six years I’ve struggled with one of the most frustrating aspects of photography … location scouting.”
Taking the stage
Student after student took the stage on November 4, 2026, to share a problem they’ve seen and a creative, innovative way to solve it. It was part of Startup Garage’s sixth annual PitchUp competition.
“Raise your hand if you’ve tried to reduce your screen time,” asked Ephraim Dykstra. “Now keep it up if it actually worked?” Almost all hands drop in unison. “Nix Scoreboard relies on competition, because competition is a lot stronger than will power.”
“How many of us have so many things that we would love to do if only we knew they existed?” asked Paul Kumswa. “Outside collects all the reputable sources both in your city and from your college campus and it gives you a curated feed of all the cool things you can do that day and if you want to do something it makes it super easy to make a plan and invite your friends.”
In total, 12 students pitched ideas in front of PitchUp’s largest crowd to date: 126 students and supporters.
“I think this was one of the most composed and clear Pitch Up events with every single person coming in with clarity for what their idea was, presenting it well, staying within those two minutes so they could start strong and end strong and the audience got a handle on what it was. They did a great job,” said Jon VerLee.
Creating space to test new ideas
VerLee founded Startup Garage at Calvin in 2022 as a club and it has since grown into a nonprofit in west Michigan that is hoping to expand Christ-centered entrepreneurship. There are now more than 600 people who are part of the network and dozens of Calvin students join each year.
“These pitch events are really about affirmation of ideas,” said VerLee. “So, if you have an idea and you want to see if it has any hope of living, you’ve got to tell people about it.”
Each student had two minutes to pitch their idea, hoping to hook the audience as they closed out their time.
“Let’s be honest, we all know a Bella, maybe even we’ve been in Bella’s shoes. Bella doesn’t have to struggle anymore … she just needs to be Connect-Ed,” said Anayo-Ezikeoha, founder of Connect-Ed, a platform where students who are struggling can meet students who can actually help.
“With your support, Scout can become the go-to platform for discovering the perfect location anywhere, anytime,” said Kok, the founder of Scout, a simple community driven app, designed by a photographer for photographers to make location scouting simpler, faster, and more inspiring.
Helping students refine and pivot
It took courage for the students to take the stage and to endure the spotlight for two minutes, but VerLee says it’s a crucial step in the process of building a business.
“These people who say I’m going to operate in stealth mode and build the whole thing and then show the world, they have high hopes that are almost always left with disappointment,” said VerLee. “Because in reality it takes a lot of mini pivots from every single conversation or events like this that you have to refine that idea into being something that the world actually wants and needs.”
Helping the young entrepreneurs refine their ideas were four judges from the west Michigan community who have expertise in business, marketing and public speaking, experience creating their own successful startups, and/or had past success on the very stage the students were standing on at a previous PitchUp competition. When the two-minute timer went off, the questions flooded in for the students to answer live, on-stage, in front of the audience.
“How will you make money?”
“Who do you see as competition?”
“How do your customers find you?
“What do your current customers love and not love about your business?”
“Have you piloted this here so far?”
“What convinced you there was a need for this?”
Those questions will help students further refine their ideas just like many of the student pitchers have been doing this year through the weekly events hosted by Startup Garage on campus where students learn from startup founders and go through workshops in order to refine their entrepreneurial skills. They also see how those skills translate to whatever they decide to do in their future careers.
“I think it’s a really encouraging community, where they really train you to have lifelong skills and when I’m presenting in engineering, I use the skills Startup Garage taught me,” said Anayo-Ezikeoha. “After Calvin, I’m still discerning what God has for me. I like the mission-driven focus of Startup Garage, so any opportunity to connect with some kind of higher good that God would like to use me to impart to the world.”