 For these five entrepreneur teams it started with a dream to launch a business After a year of research presentation development and mentorship their dream may become a reality Today they'll have five minutes to pitch their business plan to a panel of experts ready to invest in their futures From the Fairfield University Charles F. Dolan School of Business. This is Fairfield startup Hi, I'm Christian, and I represent the priority route team We focus on route prioritization software for any business with a large fleet of vehicles We started off as a class project and within a couple months it was getting a little bit more serious and now we're here As a Fairfield computer science student There's a large emphasis on being able to go into the business field and be successful even though we're engineers We're taking a class called software design methods. The lab is focusing on entrepreneurship We have five engineers who are working on different aspects of the application So I for one I'm doing the database I have two people working on the Algorithm and then there are two more people working on the application and any user interface We have two business majors who focus on our marketing and our finances and what they brought to the team was their faith in us Which made us want to work even harder on the product as an engineering team We don't know the best way forward and so having the mentors as part of the startup competition is Invaluable they have been helping us all along So what I want people to know is that anybody can take part in this experience Doesn't matter if you're in the business school if you're in the arts and sciences every year in the engineering school Anybody with a good idea can come here and learn how to create a business from scratch Christian Akeem and his team have taken priority route from class project to startup showcase Today he will represent the group and pitch to the startup investor battle Hi, my name is Christian and I represent the priority route team Today waste management companies are facing a problem They waste time money and risk low customer satisfaction because they are not able to see if a dumpster is full without going to the physical location A driver can travel miles across town only to be met with an empty dumpster in the process wasting fuel and man hours This is especially bad for small to medium-sized businesses that rely on good customer relationships and have limited resources Priority route is a two-part solution that enables these businesses to take their services to the next level We provide route optimization and organization for companies to use data and allocate resources more efficiently in The process priority route can help businesses reduce waste Reduce stress and increase customer satisfaction enabling them to save money increase profits and become more sustainable The software that priority route provides allows administrators to allocate pickup locations to each member of their team While every individual member has access to a mobile application with dynamic routing solutions All of this paired with a colorful and friendly user interface saves the driver's time and the company's resources Meanwhile, the hardware is installed in each receptacle periodically relaying the fill level back to the central computer Our hardware is inexpensive to create and maintain easy to install and durable At priority route our main goal is to provide Inficiency and simplicity and the implementation reflects this to enable priority route Businesses need a one-time hardware installation and software setup After that the software will begin producing optimized routes for all users within the system Initial installation will cost five thousand dollars and in round fifty five dollars per sensor Additionally, there will be a monthly subscription fee pending the number of vehicles in a fleet In the United States there are over twelve thousand waste management companies of those Roughly twenty five percent are interested in adapting to newer technology Priority route is interested in those small to medium-sized enterprises with one to twenty vehicles These businesses are oftentimes cash strapped and unable to spend resources on other routing solutions The ideal customer is a small waste management company in the New England area with the goal of branching out into the greater northeast regional area While priority route is optimized for waste management The applications are limitless especially in areas such as dry cleaning package delivery and medical waste Where there are similar routing issues to the waste management industry Priority route provides software as a service plus the added installation charges for the hardware and training for the software After the initial investment customers will be charged a monthly subscription fee so they can continue Research and development as well as maintaining the service In the coming years we plan on expanding our network to more users every year and because of the low maintenance costs Priority route will be able to allocate income towards researching better solutions for our customers As the world continues to grow and develop waste management companies will grow too and so will their problems Smaller businesses will struggle to remain efficient with growing demand and while there are other route optimization solutions on the market They do not provide the same benefits as priority route and are not tailored specifically to their needs Our team consists of a talented group of engineers partnered with experienced business students Together the priority route team is working towards making this software a reality so that companies can begin to benefit and in the next few months We are aiming to establish additional customer relationships for the software launch With the initial demonstration of our software in the coming weeks priority route looks to have a fully developed app ready for deployment by the end of the year The priority route team has established relationships with companies such as Robert Wright disposal and Advantage disposal But we are still in need of potential customers demonstrating interest to make this software a reality Priority route is working towards creating waste management solutions for underserved businesses and together We can provide efficiency sustainability and peace of mind for all of our customers. Thank you With the presentation complete it's time for the startup investor panel discussion Christian must impress the panelists to take priority route to the next level. Thank you very much for being here this morning My name is Michael. This is Joe and Mary Ann. We've reviewed your video multiple times now. We just saw your presentation again By the way Thank you very much. We all have Quite a few questions. We don't have as much time as we would like to answer all the questions We have we have some broad strokes overview and then maybe invite the conversation after the after the entire presentation So it's all right with you Mary and Joe. I'll kick off with just a couple of questions and we'll feed you Very good. We just start my Time right here. So Christian, I reviewed the I do not have a lot of knowledge in the industry I have some fleet and logistics knowledge But my question for you was two things jumped out at me was there seem to be some pretty significant upfront cost There was a five thousand dollars set up fee And I don't know if that's a one time for a business or each dumpster. Then there was a $13,000 Something fee and then there was a $1,200 fee is that per dumpster? I need to understand that a little bit and and and Understand those costs kind of being upfront because they appear to be significant numbers for a smaller targeted medium-sized company that you're targeting. You understand my question Yes, I do and so the the five thousand dollar number that we put That is based on how much it would take for one of our technicians to go and set up each of the hardware devices Around the network and to do the training. So we we estimated an hourly cost of about 60 to 90 dollars per hour for the technician And how long it would take to go to each location and do the initial setup Meanwhile, the hardware cost is based off of our approximate 55 to 60 dollars per sensor and our normal customer having about 250 dumpsters we estimate So that's where we got the numbers for those initial upfront costs So that five thousand was 200 dumpsters for the 60 to 90 dollars in our technician and the 13,000 was 200 dumpsters to have the hardware installed at $60 a pop. Yes So once those are installed It's all done and the maintenance of those pieces of computers or chips are Internet of type things inside the dumpster falls on the company in the 12 in the monthly fee Yes, that would be included in the monthly subscription fee at least that is our goal to provide maintenance as part of the subscription That can of course Eventually change have you done any research to find out whether or not these manufacturers of dumpsters are installing, you know in the compactors maybe a Digital scale in it So it knows our internet of things type cameras embedded in the sides of the actual dumpsters because any type of technology Install in a dumpster, right? I'm sure you've worked with dumpsters and seeing stuff gets broken just by throwing stuff in So I want to know if that's something that's if you've identified a gap, which is great or if you haven't done that research yet well, what we found was that a lot of these companies that offer the dynamic routing and the and the level management a lot of the times you have to buy a completely new dumpster and We've seen that those dumpsters can cost up to five or six hundred dollars each To completely replace the entire network So what we identified as the niche is that we can just put a sensor in there a very discreet small Sensor that will allow us to get the reading without having to replace the entire dumpster and just add on to it Interesting. All right. Thank you. Joe, Marianne. You have any questions? I don't know anything about this business, but I Focused on your financial model. So I have a couple of questions regarding that model at least From a guidance standpoint, you know It seems like from that the cost of the customer Is about thirty thousand dollars a year So it would be good if you Quantified the amount of savings that a Medium-sized company would get and to be able to show You know value that makes this thirty thousand dollars You know a viable alternative You know to the things they're doing The other the other thing I would mention is more guidance than it than than anything else Your financial statements would be We have to take you IPO next week They are you know outrageously wonderful So it seems to me that you don't have all the cost embedded You know in that financial model Such as you're not going to be able to get a hundred 25 sales without any marketing sales people um So anyway, those are just some You know general guides, uh, if If the quantification works then this is really a great Uh concept and a great idea So thanks Thank you so christian christian wondering if you could uh share a little bit about the competitive analysis that you might have done just looking out there, you know the waste management industry Has gone through and continues to go through lots of consolidation. You know the big guys 20 years ago with waste management bfi and and allied waste all of these, you know major consolidation buying up all the small mom and pop haulers so um It seems to me that you know from a competitive analysis standpoint these small uh haulers They can't afford a lot and you know to follow on along what joe just said, uh, have you done some understanding um competitive analysis of what's out there who's offering what How you would compare to that and then again your value proposition to the small haulers So I'd like to begin by saying that The the monthly subscription cost is actually based on the number Of trucks that a company has so it it doesn't always need to be up to 1200 dollars per month Which would make it more accommodating to a business that does not necessarily have such a large fleet and in terms of How much they will save we've done we've looked into mostly fuel economics and maintenance and For a given truck that takes about three miles per gallon The cost could be very significant if they don't have to waste time going to unfilled dumpsters so The companies are if they're going to only be picking up lesser number of times The haulers are going to be certainly saving monies. But if some of their pricing is based on their pickups How does it really balance out? I mean, what's the value? I really think you need to look at the value proposition not only from The hauler standpoint, but from the company standpoint as well the company That's having pickups done. So just some advice there Yeah, I'll tell you just we're intrigued. I think there's some issues with the industry that we want to get to know better and understand better Um, I mean, I happen to know trash haulers have The ones that I've dealt with have like a pickup fee whether my dumpsters empty or not and I would Venture to guess that they're thrilled to come by and find out that dumpsters, you know Light or empty and then charge me my $4 pickup fee. So we just want to know more I want to thank you for for this you're uh, you did a good job in the presentation And you did a good job right now and we look forward to seeing you in the award round Thank you so much for coming out Fairfield startup would like to thank our sponsors for continuing to make the annual startup showcase possible. Thank you Priority route has presented and it's on to the final round Visit fairfield.edu slash startup to watch all of the 2020 fairfield startup team episodes Vote for your favorite and tune in next week to see the winner of the ct next Connecticut Innovations audience favorite award. Thanks for watching fairfield startup This has been a presentation of fairfield university and the dole in school of business