Contact: Allison Matthews
Photo by: Trey Wallace
STARKVILLE, Miss.--When an entrepreneurial culture fosters innovative business thinking at a university full of school spirit and tradition, a "Cowbelt" is the natural result.
Game Day Design Group, a business started by Mississippi State engineering and business students, is unveiling its first product, the Cowbelt, this fall. Available now in stores and online, the simple holster designed for carrying MSU cowbells on game days, is "a bit of simple genius," according to its developers.
Tom Stockman, an MSU doctoral student in mechanical engineering, and Evan Suggs, who works for the U.S. Army Redstone Test Center, first brainstormed the idea while driving back from the 2011 Gator Bowl victory. Stockman earned a bachelor's degree in 2013, and Suggs is a 2010 magna cum laude electrical engineering graduate.
"Carrying our cowbells was cumbersome, and stumbling on the idea of a cowbell holster, we couldn't believe it had not already been done," Stockman said. He later shared the idea with international business and philosophy and religion student Ben Baily because of his creativity and business savvy. Bailey and Stockman had become fast friends when they worked together as resident advisors on campus.
Bailey worked with Stockman and Suggs on product design, "but as a business advisor I primarily helped with entrepreneurial matters and formation of the company," he said. Bailey is an August 2014 summa cum laude graduate now studying at Princeton Theological Seminary.
During the design phase, the team contemplated how the product would hold cowbells securely, how to keep the bells from ringing while walking, and how to accommodate different cowbell sizes.
They presented their ideas to the university's Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board, a panel of professors. They also utilized the Rapid Prototyping Lab, a 3D printing resource, in the Bagley College of Engineering's Patterson Hall.
"The product suddenly became very real. The ability to rapidly prototype new ideas in a lab like that is fantastic for engineering development," Stockman said.
Suggs said that when they showed the prototypes around to MSU friends, they were encouraged about the sales prospects.
"After we got positive feedback, we thought we had a good enough idea to sell, but financial and administrative obstacles were daunting," Suggs said.
The students again turned to MSU's Entrepreneurship Center, which heard their business proposal during a monthly meeting for business start-ups.
"The E Center was instrumental in helping us with the logistics of starting a business and funding our initial efforts. With their help, we got our first 50 prototypes made and started showing them off around campus and to local businesses," said Stockman. "We also received some funding for placing third in the Entrepreneurship Week Prototype Competition this past spring."
Allison Pearson, a W.L. Giles Distinguished Professor in MSU's College of Business, said the students identified an opportunity in the market and created a solution.
"The Game Day Design Group is a creative group of super-star students who understand how to marry excellent design with customer needs," Pearson said.
For more about the business and their Cowbelt product, visit http://gamedaydesigngroup.com/. For more information about Mississippi State, visit www.msstate.edu.