Two Trulaske teams make top three in Mizzou EQ, advance to UM System finals

The Trulaske College of Business was well-represented between two of the top three finishing teams at the 2020 Mizzou Entrepreneur Quest Student Accelerator finals. The two teams included an execMBA student winning first place and a BS BA management senior as a member of the third place team.

Dan Hoffman, an execMBA student, won first place and a $15,000 prize for his venture Norah Health, a predictive software that uses machine learning to give healthcare providers insights into improving patient experience. Hoffman is a radiology supervisor at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and has begun the clinical trial phase for the software.

Trent Esser is a senior BS BA student studying management. With Hayden Seidel, a civil engineering senior in the MU College of Engineering, Esser co-founded Printerior, a startup that recycles plastic into sustainable furniture using 3-D printers. The team took third place and a $5,000 prize.

Hoffman and Esser will pitch their businesses once more at the UM System EQ finals, where the students from the top three projects from the four UM System campuses will all present via Zoom video conferencing on April 15 and 16 for a chance at an additional cash prize.

EQ is an educational program across the four-campus UM System that involves a series of workshops, faculty mentoring and coaching from local entrepreneurs to help students create and develop entrepreneurial ventures and learn how to pitch those ventures. The startups compete for cash prizes at the campus and system level.

Update, April 16, 2020: The presentations for Trulaske students pitches Norah Health and Printerior were given during the first round of UM System EQ semi-finals. While neither team advanced to the next round, Mizzou's third pitch, Pollinate, won first place.