It’s holiday shopping time! To help make your gift buying a little easier we assembled the following guide featuring products and services from WashU entrepreneurs and innovators that anyone on your list will love. Plus, take a look at the companion gift guide on FUSE!
If you are a WashU alumni, student, staff or faculty member who started a business and would like to be added to our gift guide, please email us at sc@wustl.edu. We are happy to add you to our list!
Apparel and Fashion Accessories
Daph. – leather and baby alpaca fur handbags, empowering customers to better society with each purchase. Founded by Daphne Benzaquen (MBA ’17). Daphne has been a wonderful mentor for WashU students through panelist events and webinars at the Skandalaris Center. Daphne is a talented and experienced entrepreneur who has founded three successful brands: daph., Daphne Benzaquen Consulting, and The Chomp. She has a wealth of experience in marketing, branding, events, and sales, and she brings this experience to her consulting work with small business owners and entrepreneurs in helping them grow their businesses. Daphne is also a founding member of ThriveCo and is ThriveCo’s Director of Special Projects.
Janji – inspired performance running essentials to equip you wherever you run or roam. Founded by Mike Burnstein (AB ’12) and Dave Spandorfer (AB ’11), and Kenny Fairleigh (BS ‘11) all previous members of Washington University’s cross country team. Janji makes running apparel modeled after a country’s flag, and proceeds address that country’s unique need related to food and water. The organization fosters a larger community of runners based on a shared commitment to improving lives across the globe. Janji received a total of $15,000 in the YouthBridge SEIC, including the $10,000 Skandalaris award and the $5,000 award to the best student venture. Mike Burnstein contributed to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and culture on campus by serving as a Skandalaris Center student ambassador, as a Skandalaris intern, and took the Janji team to the Hatchery and then very successfully to the YouthBridge SEIC.
Lux & Nyx – quality, functional handbags for ambitious women climbing the leadership ladder. Founder, Lisa Hu (PMBA ’16) created a company around handbags designed for “jet-setter luxury and boardroom quality.”
The Normal Brand – a Midwestern lifestyle clothing and accessories line, founded by Jimmy Sansone (BSBA ’10). Jimmy has shared his entrepreneurial advice in Skandalaris webinars. He started working in finance and hated it, but loved one shirt he made – the first Normal shirt. Insanely comfortable, durable, and versatile. He quit his job and moved into our parents’ basement to work on it full time.
Pareto – a women’s apparel brand designed to change our relationship with clothing. Founded by Jessica Landzberg (BSBA ’17) and Olivia Bordson (BSBA ’15). They started Pareto, located in Chicago, IL, in the summer of 2020, and continue to be the two-woman driving force behind their brand. Pareto was a finalist for Skandalaris’ 2021 Global Impact Award. The Skandalaris Center featured the founders of Pareto during Women in Entrepreneurship Week 2021.
RompHim – a romper designed for men. Founded by Daniel Webster-Clark (BSBA ’11, MS ’11). Romphim is on a mission to break down stereotypes, fashion and otherwise. According to their website, “We embrace the different and celebrate the bold. We’re here to help you live your best life and have fun doing it. We are the original, but more importantly, so are you.”
Summersalt – Designer quality swimwear and essentials for the modern woman. Founded by Lori Coulter (MBA ’99). Summersalt’s co-founder and CEO, Lori Coulter, is a member of the Skandalaris Center National Council. Summersalt is a generation-defining lifestyle brand known for its data-backed fit and designer quality products without the designer price tag. Lori and her Co-founder, Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin, launched Summersalt to change the conversation around swimwear and address a true market gap. Summersalt’s product is developed with 1.5 million measurements taken from 10,000 women’s body scans.
Tylmen – started as neckties, pocket squares, face mask/pocket square combos, and more. Founded by Lloyd Yates (MBA ’22), Tylmen has evolved into a marketplace for customers and brands to connect over common sizing with the assistant of highly accurate virtual sizing technology. Every time a customer shops with Tylmen, they automatically get paired with clothing items that fit them best, enabling them to find new stores while brands acquire new customers. Lloyd was a featured panelist for the Black Entrepreneurship in St. Louis panel discussion with veteran and rising innovative entrepreneurs from the St. Louis area organized by the Olin Black MBA Association. He has competed in the Skandalaris Center Venture Competition and Skandalaris’ IdeaBounce® events. He was chosen for the 2021 St. Louis Business Journal “Inno Under 25” list of up-and-coming founders in St. Louis’ startup community.
Beauty and Skin Care
Golden Roots Essentials – an all-natural holistic lifestyle brand focused on infusing skincare, self-care, and African culture to provide access to healthy skincare products. Founded by Fanta Kaba (MBA ’21). Golden Roots was a fall 2020 Skandalaris Venture Competition (SVC) 3rd place winner and the 1st place winner of $50,000 at the 2021 Global Impact Award (GIA). At WashU, Fanta found community during courses like The Hatchery and Digital Marketing. She shared, “[In the Hatchery], I learned so much about being a startup and how to get going. Professor Villhard and II inspired me to partake in pitches and witnessed me doing my first one at the Olin African Business Club Pitch Competition. My time in Professor Wall’s Digital Marketing class is also a highlight of my tenure at Olin. As an e-commerce business, I gained great practical knowledge to apply directly to my business.”
Educational Materials
3Dux Design –Founded by current WashU student Ayana Klein (LA’22), 3Dux Design supplies children around the world with the educational materials and academic skills they need to succeed. Anna was a Skandalaris Center Global Impact Award winner in 2020 earning an award of $20,000. She also competed in Olin’s Big IdeaBounce® in spring 2020 and took home the top prize of $2500 in the undergraduate category for her architectural modeling system, consisting of cardboard connectors and curriculum, which supports STEM education globally. Ayana planned to use a portion of the prize money to employ her fellow Washington University students as interns with 3Dux Design and offer educational opportunities to children.
Food and Beverage
Bardstown Bourbon – Co-founder of the Bardstown Bourbon Company David Mandell (AB ‘97) holds many roles. In addition to being the former CEO and president of his Kentucky-based bourbon company, Mandell has been an active member of the Skandalaris National Council. Together with Kishore Kanakamedala, he has judged and supported the Spring and Fall 2021 Skandalaris Venture Competitions, which have awarded a combined total of more than $47k in funding to kickstart WashU students and alumni’s early-stage ventures and ideas.
Bellafina Chocolates – a chocolate company created to help the world’s most vulnerable children, founded by Brenda Barnicki (BS ’86). All net profit, after expenses, is directed to charities helping children threatened by disease, poverty, abuse, or neglect. The company is staffed almost entirely by volunteers, plus the paid positions that they’ve created to help struggling single mothers and women in recovery from addiction, abuse, or other personal struggles.
Brooklyn Winery Brian Leventhal (BSBA ‘05) is a seasoned entrepreneur. Before even starting Brooklyn Winery with a friend, Leventhal had already launched a successful business of his own as an undergrad at WashU: Wydown Water. In 2003, through the Skandalaris Center’s Student Entrepreneurial Program (StEP), he leased an operating space on campus for his water delivery service, which rents water coolers to students’ dorms and apartments. 18 years later, Wydown Water is still serving students today! Leventhal speaks highly of his experience running an on-campus business as a student. “Running Wydown Water was probably one of the most valuable experiences I had while attending Washington University,” Leventhal says. “Running that business really sparked my entrepreneurial flames.”
Compass Coffee – a coffee roaster and retailer dedicated to making Real Good Coffee. Founded by Michael Haft (BSBA ’09) and Harrison Suarez (AB ’09) after the two served together in the Marines. Compass Coffee is a chain of cafes with locations throughout Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia. With 12 locations, Compass Coffee is in the midst of constructing a roastery facility that will eventually produce 10 million pounds of coffee a year.
Division Wine Co. Division Winemaking Company is a Portland, Oregon based winery founded in 2010 by Kate Norris and Thomas Monroe (MBA ’09). Determined to make approachable and balanced wines though minimal manipulation, the winemakers have a passion to work with well farmed terroir expressive vineyards, many of which are organic and/or Biodynamic®, celebrating the varietals the winemakers loves to drink.
Foundry Bakery – The Foundry Bakery provides high quality baked goods and beverages. They are inspired to break barriers and bring people together through exploration of flavors and textures. Founded by Huong Pham (MBA ’11), a Brown Shoe Company Corporate Fellow. Their grand opening had a crowd of enthusiastic patrons, sampling the tea lattes, sweet and savory breads and juices offered at her Asian bakery.
GiftAMeal – a mobile application that enables its users to fight hunger with photos by connecting them to socially conscious restaurants. Founded in 2014 as a way to fight hunger and promote St. Louis restaurants by Andrew Glantz, (BU ‘17) and Jacob Mohrmann, (BU, LA ‘16). GiftAMeal has been a Global Impact Award (GIA) finalist multiple times, as well as winning other non-WashU competitions. GiftAMeal has since expanded to Chicago and Detroit and has provided over 50,000 meals to those in need. Users simply snap and post of photo of their meal, and GiftAMeal funds a meal through a partner food bank.
Good Soul Company – imports a TigerNut food snack from Nigeria, under the name Good Soul TigerNuts, to increase market access to African farmers. The Good Soul Company was founded by Ony Mgbeahurike (MBA ‘19), who conceived this business idea in the spring of 2019 while also taking the Hatchery Class with Cliff Holekamp. With the Good Soul Company, Mgbeahurike then became a finalist in the 2019 Skandalaris Venture Competition. That same year, he was awarded a Skandalaris Center Award in Entrepreneurship, which recognizes the entrepreneurial achievements of Washington University students, faculty, and alumni.
Halo + Cleaver – Halo + Cleaver’s co-founder Matt Richard (PMBA ‘19) has been deeply involved with both the St. Louis and Washington University startup scene. In fact, Halo + Cleaver was one of the nine WashU-affiliated startups that won $50,000 in funding from local nonprofit Arch Grants in October 2021. Richard partly attributes the success of his company to his time at the Olin Business School, especially due to his 2019 Hatchery Class with Cliff Holekamp, Olin Business School Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship. While Richard was in the Hatchery, he was part of a team that launched The Confluence—St. Louis’ first true holistic restaurant incubator—which became a finalist in the 2019 Skandalaris Venture Competition. Due to Richard’s exemplary involvement in innovation and entrepreneurship during his time at the University, the Skandalaris Center awarded him an Honors in Entrepreneurship in the spring of 2019.
Honeymoon Chocolates – bean to bar craft chocolate sweetened with honey. Founded by Cam Loyet (MBA ’21). Honeymoon Chocolates was a spring 2020 Skandalaris Venture Competition (SVC) 2nd place winner and has employed WashU students as summer interns as part of the St. Louis Entrepreneurial Fellowship program. Honeymoon Chocolates was a 2021 Arch Grants winner of $50,000. Honeymoon Chocolates officially began in a dorm room kitchen when Co-Founders Cam and Haley Loyet first began making bean-to-bar craft chocolate sweetened with honey. The first and foremost reason for creating chocolate is to allow consumers to remove refined sugar from their favorite foods. Secondary, but just as important, is to address the decline of honeybees and the decreasing supply of cacao nationwide.
Sophie Bay Biscuits – Founded by Sophie Handler (BA ’18) and specializing in specialty cookies and house-made jam. Receiving a box of SBB feels like getting a letter from a friend, a parent, a lover: hand-selected cookies, a typewritten note, and a poem or short story to read while munching. The boxes feel like everything was hand-selected and written just for you, by someone who both knows your tastes and how to surprise you really well. Sophie Bay Biscuits was started in Brooklyn, NY and now operates out of Seattle, WA.
Stone’s Throw Hash – a company focused on serving hot, filling meals that are as good for the body as they are for the local economy. Founded by Ben James (MBA ’12), they believe in the power of regional food systems and focus on sourcing only natural ingredients from regional farms partners. Stone’s Throw Hash gives 1% of their revenue back to supporting local farming initiatives in the communities where their products are sold. In 2019 the founder, Ben James, took his passion for local food and breakfast hash to the streets of Baltimore with a food truck named “The Hash Mobile”. Customers continually asked if they could find our hashes in stores to make at home and now you can buy their hashes in 50+ grocery stores throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
Stumpy’s Spirits Participated in the Skandalaris Center’s startup competition (now called the Skandalaris Venture Competition). Self-described as the “Chief Everything-else Officer” of his company Stumpy’s Spirits, Adam Stumpf (PMBA ‘14) runs his family-owned venture with his wife, Laura. Stumpf credits his time as a PMBA student at Washington University to kick-starting his distillery. “It was while earning my PMBA that we conceptualized and took the first steps to starting the distillery,” Stumpf says. “In fact, while I was in the Introduction to Entrepreneurship class with David Poldoian, we secured funding and purchased our original distillation system.” The founder of Stumpy’s Spirits was also able to gain valuable entrepreneurship experience like pitching skills and refining business plans through the Skandalaris Cup, which is now known as the Skandalaris Venture Competition. Stumpf ultimately made it as a finalist in that competition.
Sweetology – a first of its kind company delivering entertainment retail around the decoration of baked goods. Founded by Kara Newmark (JD ’94). Sweetology has employed WashU students as summer interns as part of the St. Louis Entrepreneurial Fellowship program. Sweetology doesn’t just provide a sweet experience for its customers. It is also the “sweetest of internships,” according to Washington University student Elizabeth Davidson (BSBA ‘21). During the summer of 2019, Sweetology hosted Davidson as part of the Skandalaris’ Summer Internship Program. Davidson learned the ins and outs of the DIY dessert business and helped sell Sweetology’s decorating kits under the guidance of Newmark.
Xi’an Famous Foods – high quality and authentic dishes of the historic city of Xi’an, China, based on family recipes. Xi’an Famous Foods is based in New York, currently shipping meal kits anywhere in the US, and a cookbook with never-before-published recipes. A family business of Jason Wang (BSBA ’09). Xi’an Famous Foods 西安名吃 (XFF) began as a 200 square foot basement “hole-in-the-wall” stall in the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing, N.Y., the de-facto Chinatown of New York City, now has 10 locations. It was opened by a homesick Chinese immigrant named David (Jason’s dad), with his life savings, after sending his son to college. David just wanted to share his hometown food with fellow homesick immigrants like himself.
Games and Hobbies
Cotton Cuts – the first and only online provider of fabric for quilters delivering monthly customized fabric subscription boxes. Founded by Kim Moos (Olin Executive Women’s Leadership Program ’17). Cotton Cuts is on a mission to create jobs. We have partnered with a local workshop that provides dignified employment opportunities to the intellectually challenged and to those with other disabilities. Every Cotton Cuts membership that you purchase contributes toward enriching the lives of these very talented individuals. Kim has shared her entrepreneurial experiences with students via panels and webinars.
Genius Games – board games and other products that accurately portray scientific concepts. Founded by John Coveyou (AB ’10, MS ’11). John began creating board games as a kid, but waited until 2013 to quit his engineering job and start Genius Games. Between those life events, John spent time in the US Army, earned a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Washington University, and taught chemistry and physics to students many ages. A love for teaching led him to start Genius Games. The company designs and produces award-winning games that “simultaneously demystify intimidating concepts in the sciences and engage the players in a lifelong process of inquiry.”
Greater Than Games – tabletop gaming products. Greater Than Games was founded in 2011 by Christopher Badell, Adam Rebottaro, and Paul Bender (AB ’07, MA ’08) with the flagship game Sentinels of the Multiverse. Since then they have published engaging, richly-themed and highly replay-able tabletop games. With these ideals in mind, Greater Than Games merged with Dice Hate Me Games in 2015 and acquired the publishing rights to Cheapass Games in 2019, publishing award winning games like Tak, Kill Doctor Lucky, Bottom of the 9th, Spirit Island, Medium and more. Paul has been a mentor to the Skandalaris community by serving as an Expert on Call and sharing his expertise in several panels and webinars.
Home and Office
Dormify – a direct-to-consumer, one-stop-shop for dorm and small space decor. Founded by Amanda Zuckerman (BFA ’13, BS ’13). While shopping for her freshman year of college, Amanda and her mom, Karen, were on the hunt for fashionable dorm decor. But, there wasn’t one place that had everything they needed, especially stylish Twin XL bedding. So they created it. Dormify hopes their online store, active Dormify community, and college tips help the transition to college stress-free and fun! Amanda has been a Skandalaris Center competition judge and shared her expertise during the HER Summit in 2019.
Wabbani – a socially conscious home décor company that manufactures and sells culturally authentic add-ons from remote developing communities, including items that fit the exact specifications of Ikea products. Founded by Paul Dinkins (MBA ’18). Washington University is where he met Alice Layton when she pitched the idea in one of his classes for what later became Wabbani. Their venture was a 2020 Global Impact Award winner (GIA) of $10,000 and won the Startup of the Year Skandy Award in 2018. Alice has participated in Skandalaris’ Delmar Loop Social Impact Hackathon and helped mentor students in the Endgame of Entrepreneurship class.
Cards and Gifts
Cheree Berry Paper – a graphic design studio specializing in hand-crafted invitations and cards for all special occasions. Founded by Cheree Berry (BFA ’00). Founded in 2006 with a focus on print design, the company has since evolved into a sought-after, award-winning design firm renowned for its sophisticated solutions across all communication mediums. Cheree has been a mentor to WashU students at the She Leads event as well as webinars and commencement.
Greetabl – easy to send unique and personalized gifts that your people will love. Founded by Zoë Scharf (BFA ’11) and Joe Fischer. Joe and Zoë merged their respective backgrounds in business and design along with their entrepreneurial spirits to launch Greetabl. In 2014, Greetabl won a $50,000 Arch Grant and was part of the Capital Innovators accelerator program, which comes with a $50,000 investment. Zoë has shared her experience with WashU students through webinars.