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Photo of Brite founders Lukas Thackery, Martin Craig Dombrowski and Nate Wimer posing.

Brite Ideas

Brite Ideas

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The future’s looking Brite for West Virginia University alumni Lukas Thackery, Martin Craig Dombrowski and Nate Wimer.

In 2023, the trio came up with a bright, or rather, Brite idea to start a business that proactively identifies college students' needs through an app that rewards students for sharing real-time feedback.

As an MBA graduate from WVU's John Chambers College of Business and Economics, Thackery recognized that Brite needed a strategic plan that valued experimentation. 

That led him and his co-founders to Vantage Ventures.

“Vantage Ventures and its director, Dr. Ryan Angus, helped our team by making us continuously challenge our business model assumptions,” Thackery said. “Their mindset kept us nimble and adaptable, driving our growth and success.”

Since launching in 2023, Brite has expanded to five college towns, giving away over $10,000 in prizes from more than 100 local businesses. In November 2024, the company received $150,000 from Wing 2 Wing Ventures, enabling them to build their engineering team and accelerate growth.

So, what’s next for Brite?

According to Thackery, Brite aims to launch new university partnerships designed to reduce student attrition through data-driven insights by spring 2025.

Do you have an entrepreneurial idea you want to pursue? Apply today to the spring cohort of Vantage Ventures’ startup accelerator!

Written by: Emma Higgins

First Pitch

Supported by Silicon Valley CEO Ray Zinn, the first ZinnStarter Pitch Competition, hosted by the LaunchLab, gave aspiring collegiate entrepreneurs an opportunity to win cash to build their ideas into the next groundbreaking product or business. Winners included: First place ($2,500): Emma Adams, WVU animal and nutritional sciences major, and her business idea PetRecord, which provides universal medical records for pets in emergency situations; second place ($1,500): Cameron Keefe, global supply chain management major, and her idea ThermoRoller, which combines physical massage with temperature control to relieve sore muscle pain; and third place ($1,000) to the team of Austin Davis, Anne Byer and Emily Thomas, from the University of Charleston, and their idea Second Chance, a program that helps give active control back to people with quadriplegia and paraplegia. 

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Embodying the Mountaineer Spirit

Congratulations to marketing student Madison Bowers, who was named a Mountaineer of Distinction this fall. The award was presented during WVU’s Mountaineer Week in October 2021 and recognizes exemplary academic achievement and extracurricular involvement. Way to go, Madison! “As someone who is from a tiny town in Coal County, West Virginia, winning this award meant the world to me. I firmly believe that it takes a village to raise a kid and I am endlessly thankful to my family, friends, community, and Chambers College family, for their help along the way. Once a Mountaineer, always a Mountaineer.” 

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All Women, All Business

Prior to 2019, West Virginia University was the only Big 12 school without a student organization dedicated to women in business. That fall semester, Deanna Crumm – now a marketing and organizational leadership senior – and other young women in the Chambers College began the University’s first Women in Business student organization to foster a supportive community of women and equip them with the knowledge, skills and network to succeed and follow their passions. 

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The Gavel Strikes 20

2023 marks the 20th year of law firm Steptoe & Johnson’s participation in the FAFE (Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination) graduate program’s Moot Court exercise. This capstone experience puts students’ skills to the test by having them investigate mock cases based on real-world financial crimes, culminating in a trial where they must testify as to their findings.  

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Hockey, Sticking

Question: What do hockey and entrepreneurship have in common?

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