Sophomore opens entrepreneurial pop up
Benjamin Wilson | Staff Photographer
Haber's club, Vision, is going to host an entrepreneurial talk series and an event called Entrepalooza, based off “Shark Tank.”
Last year on Syracuse University’s parents’ weekend, Julia Haber and her folks were sitting in Marshall Square Mall. They noticed an empty glass space and began to brainstorm ways that the space could be filled.
That is when Haber, a sophomore public relations major, thought of POP^ Shop. This shop is designed to serve as home base to emerging student products and now has a space on the first floor opposite Strong Hearts Cafe. The student entrepreneurs will have access to a public relations team, a marketing team and an interior design team.
“They can really use it as their own avenue to do what they want to in an incubated space so the students can test the market and see if it’s worthy of actually really hard launching it,” Haber said.
POP^ Shop is hosting a number of name brands in September to kick off its opening.
Steiner Sports is there this week and will be hosting an athlete signing in the space on Friday. Lululemon will be occupying the space next week.
Starting in October, the student entrepreneurs will be taking over the space. Haber said she interviewed 15 potential companies last spring and chose three to move in this fall.
The occupiers will not have to pay for anything thanks to total funding by AT&T. All the students need is their product.
From this shop, Haber is creating a club called Vision, which could be approved by the end of next week. The club will encompass not only POP^ Shop, but also an entrepreneurial talk series and an event called Entrepalooza which will be modeled after NBC’s “Shark Tank.”
“Students will pitch their ideas, and there’s a panel of judges that we’ve selected which is pretty cool,” Haber said. “We’ll choose five entrepreneurs that will access the Pop^ Shop for next fall.”
Ultimately, the store serves as stepping stone for the legacy Haber hopes to leave.
“This is one of the first endeavors of something bigger, but my real goal for this was to create a space for cross campus entrepreneurship,” she said.was to create a space for cross-campus entrepreneurship,” she said. “So if this could stand as that, I would love that.”
Published on September 16, 2015 at 12:01 am
Contact Katie: kazilcos@syr.edu
