LFHS Pitch Night 2023

Business Incubator & Accelerator Students On Their Experience

Pitch Night 2023 * May 18, 2023 * 7PM * LFHS Auditorium

This year's Business Incubator students, teachers, and volunteers have been working hard. Innovative and new business ideas have surfaced. Teams have been busy developing business ideas, networking, creating prototypes, pivoting as needed, learning through the MVP process, and putting together pitches to tell their stories. We are proud to give them a platform to share their ideas with our community in the hopes of attracting investors and raising much needed start up capital through donations and investments. Academic Pitches will take place on May 10 & May 11. At that time our panel of judges will determine which teams will move on to Pitch Night.. The teams moving on will be announced May 12 and will participate in Pitch Night on May 18 starting at 7 PM. 

At the event the teams moving forward will present their pitches to the community, we will hear from a 2021 team about their post LFHS success, and our 2022 Foundation Cup Winners will provide an update on their progress over the last year. We are thrilled to bring this "Shark Tank" style event to LFHS's  RMA (Raymond Moore Auditorium).  2023 Best Pitch and Foundation Cup winners will be announced along with funding allocations from the LFHS Foundation Partnership pool. One exciting aspect of this event is that the community at large will have the opportunity to support these teams through donations to the teams of their choice via this event website. We will also have anINVESTOR FORM available so potential investors can pledge support for any of the teams in which they wish to make a more substantial investment with the expectation of a return on that investment. This year's Foundation Cup winners will have the opportunity to get the "full incubator experience" being supported by CIC Business Incubator sprouted by Lifeworking, during the 2023-24 school year while enrolled in the Business Accelerator program at LFHS. 

We hope that everyone will JOIN US on Thursday, May 18th for Pitch Night 2023.   It should be an exciting evening filled with the enthusiasm, hope and promise of LFHS student teams who are working so hard to get their businesses up and running. 

INVESTORS WELCOME NEW LINK

After Pitch Night, each team with a viable business idea will move forward in the coming months to open and grow their business, and will seek venture capital to help in this critical phase of development. We ask investors to take this opportunity to pledge their support for an individual team and its business idea, and become more closely involved in the team's success.Use this link to navigate to our investor form if you wish to make a more substantial investment, with the expectation of a return on that investment.

INVESTING IN EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE PAYS OFF

The LFHS Foundation partnered with Lake Forest High School in the fall of 2014 to create the Business Incubator. This Junior level Honors course in the Business Department offers students a unique opportunity to become true entrepreneurs by creating and developing their own product or service. Students are coached and mentored by entrepreneurs and business experts from our community and beyond. During the year long course, student teams learn about ideation, marketing, accounting, human resources, as well as the legal and financial aspects of running a business. To further inspire creativity, a customized classroom called the Innovation Incubator has been designed to ignite brainstorming and foster collaboration as students develop products and services for the real world. "Think of a problem that needs solving, and you've got the beginnings of a new business idea," is what instructor Joe Pulio says at the beginning of each new year in BI.  The course culminates in Pitch Night, a Shark-Tank style event where select student teams have the opportunity to present their innovative ideas to a Board of Directors for the chance to earn prize money for their businesses. Teams that are awarded funding during Pitch Night then have the option to continue on with the process of starting up their business during the next year by enrolling in the Business Accelerator - a Senior level Honors business class.  More information about the Business Incubator program is available at www.lfhsfoundation.org/business-incubator.html.

The Lake Forest High School Foundation proudly invests in educational excellence at LFHS to support,  enrich, and enhance the educational experience for all students, faculty, and staff. Our partnership with the Business Incubator program and our grants have a positive and lasting impact at our high school. Please enjoy the video below to learn more.