San Antonio—An e-commerce golf clothing business called The Country Club Collection won the $25,000 top award at the Stumberg Prize Competition hosted by Trinity University in San Antonio.
The Country Club Collection liquidates unsold inventory from country club pro shops and golf outlets through its website, according to Luis Martinez, the director of Trinity’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The company was founded earlier this year by Danny Oh, a finance student at Trinity.
Reached via e-mail, Oh says he was pursuing a career as a professional golfer before being hit by a drunk driver three years ago and suffering injuries that ended that dream. Still hoping to work in the industry, he developed The Country Club Collection. Oh says that he plans to use the winnings to purchase more inventory.
Oh’s company beat out three other candidates for the prize, who all participated in the initial phase of the competition earlier this year. A dozen or so early-stage companies, formed by students at the university, pitched to a panel of judges in the spring, and four were selected to receive $5,000 in seed funding. Those four pitched last night to earn the larger $25,000 check.
The other contestants include:
—Cloud Therapy, which uses IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence technology to comb through data about diseases and genetic conditions in order to, hopefully, more readily provide physicians a diagnosis or insight.
—The Contemporary, an online publication that is part current affairs magazine, part academic journal, and part blog, aimed at undergraduate students at campuses across the country, according to Martinez.
— GLO, or Good Looking Out, a safety app that uses GPS tracking and push notifications to help students and other users check in with friends and family when they go out, Martinez says.
One factor that contributed to The Country Club Collection’s victory is that they were the only team with revenue, Martinez says. Oh says the company had more than $6,000 in sales in October.
The Stumberg competition was started in 2015 and named for San Antonio businessman Louis Stumberg, who died in 2011. Trinity’s entrepreneurship center also offers entrepreneurship courses, internships with local startups, and mentorship from entrepreneurs, such as its entrepreneur in residence.
