Will Jenkins II poses with his $5,000 winning check (Courtesy Start! Peninsula)
Start! Peninsula 3.0 winner Will Jenkins II did not enroll in the regional entrepreneur business start-up competition thinking his product would win.
When he first pitched Sweathogs — a patent-pending line of disposable perspiration absorption devices featuring skin-safe adhesive and super absorbent fibers — to judges at the College of William & Mary Mason School of Business the night of Nov. 14, he felt pretty good but not certain he would take home the $5,000 check.
The Williamsburg native was named to the top 10 after his minute-long pitch and then was able to collaborate with other Start! Peninsula participants throughout the day Saturday and Sunday, fleshing out his business model and learning all he could about marketing, web design and other aspects of running a business.
“Sunday night was a blur of nervousness and spit-balling,” he said.
When it was his turn to pitch, he stood in front of judges for five minutes and explained why Sweathogs was a great product.
“The pitches were just all very, very good, to the point where I thought I didn’t even have a chance of being in the top three,” he said. When his name was not called for third place, he began mentally picking out which product he thought did the best.
The second place winner, Landon Bland’s Sink Alert, was called, and then judges called out Sweathogs.
“It almost didn’t register for a second when they said Sweathogs,” Jenkins said, recalling how surprised and happy he was to have won. “The expectation of winning was really nonexistent.”
Jenkins credits his wife Julie for inventing the product. A nurse practitioner, Julie saw a need for a device that would allow someone to keep their face free of germs that may come from wiping the sweat off the face.
Jenkins, a full-time health physics technician for Dominion Power, was often frustrated with sweat dripping down his face while he worked.
At the time, the couple was getting ready to have a baby and was studying types of absorbent fabric in diapers. They began experimenting, combining different fiber materials until they came up with a super absorbent fiber that was adhesive.
The finished product is an absorbent, adhesive white pad that stretches the length of the average person’s forehead. Jenkins said the product is perfect for those working in healthcare or construction.
Jenkins will use his $5,000 winnings to start the patenting process, which he said is quite costly. The rest of his prize package includes a free spot at the Peninsula Technology Incubator’s accelerator, a six-week class that teaches accounting, financial modeling, business corporation formation, business law, gear consulting human resources, sales, marketing and more.
The top 10 entrepreneurs selected at Start! Peninsula received free entry into the accelerator, which costs $125 a week.
Jenkins collaborated with entrepreneurs who didn’t make the top ten at Start! Peninsula, but stayed to help him develop his business model (Courtesy Will Jenkins)
Once Jenkins has completed the accelerator, he moves onto the incubator, a program offered by the three localities in the Historic Triangle that provides a co-working space, advice from professionals on building a business, legal assistance and more.
Reflecting upon the success of the weekend, Jenkins said he is most thankful for the feedback he received on his product.
“The biggest takeaway for me was just the validation of the idea that it’s something worth pursuing,” he said, explaining he formed relationships with other entrepreneurs who did not make it into the top 10 but stuck around to help him develop his business model.
“I really felt like everybody that went that night could really realistically pursue their dream of a business and turn it in to something,” he said.
Thomas Flake, Start! Peninsula’s organizer and director of Peninsula Technology incubator, called the weekend competition “easily the best event in the three years we’ve been doing it.”
He is already planning for Start! Peninsula 4.0, which will be held in Newport News.
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