3/27/2023 Bethan Owen
Bioengineering junior Cara Bognar's business idea, Top Tier Lessons, tied for first place in this year's College New Venture Challenge.
Written by Bethan Owen
Improving delivery services across Africa. Reducing student debt. Exercise equipment that fits under your desk. For over 10 years, the College New Venture Challenge has supported all kinds of exciting undergraduate student startup ideas, rewarding student innovation with networking opportunities, practical business experience, and–for those select student groups who win the challenge–a significant amount of investment money to help make their business goals a reality.
One of the two winning startups this year and recipient of a $35,000 prize was Top Tier Lessons, a scheduling system that allows student athletes to offer athletics lessons to kids in the community. College athletes simply use the platform to indicate when they are available to teach, and community members can sign up for lessons in those time slots.
Bioengineering junior Cara Bognar, who started Top Tier Lessons, based the idea for the business on her own experiences as a collegiate swimmer.
“As a college student athlete, our schedules are crazy,” Bognar said. “With meets and practices, we don't have a very set schedule week to week. As a result we often don't have the availability to work a normal job. Top Tier Lessons makes working flexible. It’s a way for athletes to do what they love on their own time, while making money.”
The process of turning the idea of Top Tier Lessons into a working business model has been an educational experience for all team members involved. In addition to standard classroom lessons, the team members had the opportunity to meet and learn from several successful entrepreneurs, including the founders of GrubHub.
“I learned a lot about networking, and I think that's kind of a hard skill,” said
Top Tier Lessons team member and industrial engineering junior Allison Landis. “It's very intimidating to get up in front of people who mean something to you and to validate yourself to them. Just gaining that confidence and then learning from these people who are established and successful was definitely a big thing for me.”
Top Tier Lessons has been a labor of love since 2021, and receiving first place felt like an affirmation of all the hard work that has gone into the business in that time.
“Getting first place was amazing,” said Bognar. “It felt like a very full circle moment. I’ve never really done something that's accumulated in such a big win like this before. And it was incredible to be a part of such an amazing program, and such a strong team, representing the University of Illinois.”
Moving forward, Bognar is planning to take Top Tier Lessons as far as she can, with plans to work on the business full-time after graduation—”And as full-time as school and everything else allows before then,” she added.
After their success in the College New Venture Challenge, Bognar and Landis reflected on what it takes to create a startup, especially while managing college at the same time.
“College is the perfect time to take risks and try new ideas,” said Landis. “If you have an idea, have the confidence to take it somewhere. And if it doesn't work out, there'll be 100 other opportunities that are opened up to you just by trying.”
“Take advantage of the incredible resources that the University of Illinois has,” said Bognar. “There’s the Technology Entrepreneur Center. There are the people at iVenture. There are so many people in the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Illinois that are gunning for your success, and are going to do everything that they can to help you take those first steps, which can seem incredibly daunting. So get out there, talk to people, tell as many people as you can about your idea, hear the feedback, and keep iterating on that space.”
Top Tier Lessons is officially launching on April 1st at toptierlessons.com, and the team will be at this year’s Engineering Open House. Stop by March 31st or April 1st to meet them!