Kaylin Underwood is a senior with a major is communication and minor in entrepreneurship.
Hatchit Judges
Marco Perez, vice president of operations for LaunchTN, which provides funding support to organizations that offer entrepreneurship programming in rural and under-served communities.
“It is important to stress that there were a lot of great pitches and business ideas. Regarding Kaylin, there were two main draws that made me vote her to the top. 1. Her idea made sense right away. I understood the problem and the value of her proposed solution, even though I don’t have life-threatening allergies. 2. Her idea would be life-saving if executed properly. In addition to that we also evaluated preparation and quality of pitch, and she did a great job with that as well.”
Kristina Montague, managing partner of The JumpFund, an investment fund focused on providing start-up and growth capital to women entrepreneurs.
“I was very impressed by the ideas presented, many of which were much more ‘fully baked’ than I expected, several already selling their product/service. We had a very tough decision as judges as there were many that rose to the top, from improving the trucking industry to creating anxiety reducing, healthy popsicles.”
Jennifer Skjellum, program director at Co.Lab, the nonprofit startup accelerator that supports entrepreneurial growth in Southeast Tennessee
“All of the ideas pitched were innovative and interesting. I was particularly impressed by the variety of ideas, the diversity of majors represented, and the drive the students demonstrated in their presentations.”
Got a food allergy? Maybe an intolerance to things like gluten. Maybe you’re a vegetarian or vegan.
If any of these apply to you, going to the grocery store may be a frustrating experience of having to read every ingredient in everything you plan to buy.
Kaylin Underwood has a solution—the app AllerX, which will do all of that automatically.
“It’ll have a database of ingredients and nutritional information on a list of all scannable items in a grocery store,” she explains. “What you do is create a profile for you and your family, entering any foods you’re allergic to or any dietary restrictions that have.
“You take the app to the store with you and scan the products as you put them in your cart and it alerts you if one of those ingredients or restrictions are in them without having to read every single ingredient,” says Underwood, who has dealt with her own gluten intolerance in the past.
Her business idea was so good, a three-judge panel selected it as the winner of the recent HatchIt competition in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business.
“It’ll have a positive effect on society; it’s not just a capital gain. It’ll save lives if it is developed,” says Underwood, a senior with a major is communication and minor in entrepreneurship.
“ Her idea made sense right away,” says HatchIt judge Marco Perez, vice president in charge of operations at Launch Cha, which helps develop entrepreneurship opportunities in the city. “I understood the problem and the value of her proposed solution. Her idea would be life-saving if executed properly.”
For HatchIt judge Kristina Montague, Underwood’s app stood out for an intensely personal reason.
“I am a mother of a child, now 17, that has suffered from a serious peanut allergy from the age of three and have landed in the emergency room many times due to unknown ingestion of peanuts present in a variety of foods, so this one hit particularly close to home,” says Montague, founder of the JumpFund, which invests in female entrepreneurs in the Southeast to help them start or build their companies. “I would have loved an app that quickly identifies if I should be concerned about a particular product at the grocery store, as many are not wholly transparent about their ingredients or processing exposure.”
In HatchIt, Underwood competed against seven other students and one two-member team, each pitching their business idea to a three-judge panel. Students were required to make a two-minute presentation then take questions for three minutes.
“I didn’t think I was going to win. My presentation—I’m not going to lie—was not that great,” she says. “I’m bad at talking in front of people. There were about 100 people in the audience and I was onstage and I honestly think I had something of a panic attack.”
But she knew her product well enough and had enough confidence in the idea that she “loosened up” during the Q&A session.
With her piercing blue eyes and silver-dyed hair, Underwood very much looks the part of a young, hip entrepreneur. Her prizes as the winner of HatchIt give her a leg up in the business world. She receives $2,000, free mentoring from local legal and accounting firms and registration for a Co.Starters workshop, a local nine-week program that advises entrepreneurial newcomers.
Underwood is in touch with the College of Engineering and Computer Science to find a computer science student who may be able to write the code for AllerX. She also plans to get in touch with local healthcare and insurance companies, which she realizes are critical to getting the app off the ground and successful.
On the inside of her left forearm near the elbow, she has a tattoo that says “Luke 1:37.” “For no word from God will ever fail.”
Whether it’s divine intervention or simple hard work, Underwood has a mapped-out plan for AllerX that she has faith will succeed.
“I am pretty confident. I think this can be a good thing, but it’s going to be a lot of work. It’s going to be a lot of time, a lot of dedication. I’m scared, but I’m excited.”
This is amazing! A real game changer! My son is fatally allergic to dairy and peanut proteins. This would help so much in making sure foods are safe to be purchased and consumed. I truly do hope this can get off the ground.
I suffer from several food allergies. This app would save me a ton of time at the store! I’ll be keeping an eye out for it!
Great article