Startup competition winners talk shop at incubator event

Engineering savvy intersected with marketing prowess Wednesday morning as the founders of a startup company presented their ideas during the monthly 1 Million Cups gathering at downtown Cape Girardeau's Codefi business incubator.

Mikey Ahdoot and Amir Atighehchi, inaugural winners of the incubator's 1ST50K competition, are the founders of Nutlock, whose products prevent bicycle wheels from being stolen.

The two started the company because of how many times their own bikes were pilfered while studying at the University of Southern California.

"The average cyclist has over a 50 percent chance of having their bike stolen," Ahdoot said during the presentation attended by about 40 people. "That sucks."

The young men were inspired to turn their exasperation into what already has attracted about $110,000 in startup funding.

James Stapleton

Part of that -- $60,000 in presales -- comes from a Kickstarter campaign; they only expected to raise $15,000. The rest came from 1ST50K in mid-August.

Their Nutlock device has a conical shape that deflects tools used in removing -- or, in this case, stealing -- bike parts. They also came up with a specially designed security bolt.

"We went through more than 50 prototypes developing this," Ahdoot said.

The nutlock device is opened by a key that has no copies. The only way to get a duplicate is for customers to request a new one online using a code they will have received in the original device packaging. The key doubles as a bottle opener and attaches to any keychain.

Primary revenue streams for Nutlock, which retails for $39, are online sales, bicycle shops, manufacturers that pre-install the device, the international community and bike-rental fleets.

James Stapleton, co-founder of Codefi, said Nutlock was a good fit for the incubator's effort to nurture more technology startups in Cape Girardeau.

"The point of the competition is to attract and help local entrepreneurs build and develop these tech-based ventures," he said in his opening remarks.

Codefi, which is less than a year old, so far has helped start nine companies and created 24 jobs, Stapleton said.

It plans to conduct the 1ST50K competition twice a year, and is in talks with the four other finalists who squared off with Nutlock's founders. For the first competition, more than 100 applications came from 13 countries and 23 states, and sights are being set on the spring round of applicants.

Every winner is required to put operations in Cape Girardeau.

Additionally, Codefi plans to hold its next Google Startup weekend Nov. 13 to 15, which Stapleton said is a good feeder program for potential companies. It's part of building a pipeline of marketable businesses and ideas as well as being an economic development tool for the area.

Of being an entrepreneur, Stapleton said, "This stuff's hard."

But Ahdoot and Atighehchi "stuck with it."

ljones@semissourian.com

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