By Khalida Sarwari
For West Valley College student Ryan Flanigan and his business partner, Amber Yang, life just got a little sweeter. The founders of Caked with Love, a cake and cupcake company on wheels, were named the second-place winners of the second annual Silicon Valley StartUp Cup.
About 125 friends, family, entrepreneurs and other business leaders gathered Nov. 21 for the awards ceremony at West Valley College, which also included StartUp’s founder Sean Griffin in the audience.
“It was just a very, very positive evening,” said organizer Alice Fenton. “I was very pleased to see the end result of seven months of work.”
The Silicon Valley StartUp Cup, which kicked off in April, is a regional competition that awards entrepreneurs with the best business model. Participants go through a seven-month process that includes making their case to a panel of judges and receiving mentoring.
A pool of 25 business models initially selected to participate was narrowed down to seven finalists. In October, the finalists made one last pitch to the judges, hoping to convince them that their business models were the best.
Flanigan, 22, and Yang, 21, a marketing student at San-ta Clara University, started Caked with Love earlier this year. With the newly enacted cottage food operations law, allowing preparation of non-hazardous foods in private home kitchens, Flanigan and Yang have been able to bake cakes and cupcakes at home and then deliver them to people who want to serve a customized cake at a gathering or party.
The business is a labor of love for the duo, who share a passion for baking. They are now working on building a client list and website where people can place orders.
The long-term vision that Flanigan and Yang share is to transition into a bricks-and-mortar operation, but maintain the catering element of the business. They’re targeting Santana Row or a similar place to open their first shop with plans to expand from the South Bay to the rest of the Bay Area and state, and eventually across the country.
The first-place winners were Nancy McKereghan and Jenifer Bacon for their startup Tangerine+ that provides cloud-based displays showing real-time energy data.
Justin Wright, Lam Dinh, Ross Holman and Brian Knott of Cranium Shield won the third-place prize for their radiation protection devices for the heads of doctors and patients exposed to ionizing radiation from medical imaging devices, such as X-ray, CT and mammography machines.
The winners will receive targeted coaching time focused on their business model needs; the first place winner will receive 24 hours, second place 15 hours and third place 10 hours.
