Joe Sleppy as an entrepreneurial teen was looking for more potential when he came to UCF as a freshman. Sleppy’s first company was founded in his junior year of high school, SleppSolutions, which provided amputees with hands-free fitness equipment, helping him get his entrepreneurial background. Looking into the latest studies conducted there, that is when he found Dr. Jayan Thomas, UCF professor at NanoScience Technology Center.
Thomas’ research was focused on developing nanoarchitectured energy conversion and storage devices, this fascinated Sleppy so he offered his services to make this a reality.
To help soldiers to carry transmission equipment on the field and engineers around the world, Dr. Jayan Thomas, UCF professor at NanoScience Technology Center, and Joe Sleppy created an academic theory about a wire-shape supercapacitor that can provide flexible energy storage technology.
Winner of the 2016 Joust New Venture Competition, Capacitech Energy, LLC, was able to take $12,000 in cash and $25,000 in-kind services. The unique wire-shape design enables customers to better build high-power density energy storage systems to improve power quality.
Sleppy said that one of the biggest reasons he and his team won the competition was during the Q&A session. Where one of the judges mentioned how nano whiskers were bad, which was a component of his pitch at the time. Sleppy suggested the solution to use the whiskers from solder joints to increase the surface area of supercapacitors, turning it into a positive outcome.
That knowledge from a sophomore in college had blown the judges away, winning them the competition.
“I actually don’t think I had the best pitch.” Sleepy said. “I remember an investor that was in the crowd, telling me he thought I should have gotten third or fourth. So the presentation and the pitch wasn’t actually all that good, but my posture and quote and the Q&A section left an impressive mark and I think that’s what helped us win the competition overall.”
Pitch competitions like the Joust, help people build a track record of success by completing tasks, appealing to your audience, and most importantly creating credibility. Sleppy said that the Joust is the first chance students with a mission can prove themselves to companies.
“When you present at something like the Joust, it gives you a certain level of credibility. The people in the audience know what you’ve gone through multiple rounds of pitching to get there, they know you wrote an application to get there,” Sleppy said. “… It’s not just a random idea from a random person, it is a random idea from a random person that has been vetted by other people.”
In building his “circle of trust” and creating credibility, Sleppy said that UCF Blackstone Launchpad had played a big factor in providing that for him. There he was able to meet other peers who were able to assist him in his journey as an entrepreneur. He said that having a program like Blackstone with constant availability, encourages university students who have the opportunity to take big risks.
“I think it is important to have programs like Blackstone LaunchPad… To encourage students that it is okay to try to do something off the beaten path and, than to join corporate America,” Sleppy said.
As an undergraduate at UCF, Sleppy had received grants from the Small Business Technology Transfer and the National Science Foundation.
Since the competition, Sleppy has been named as one the top alumni in UCF’s 30 Under 30 Class of 2022. He was also awarded the “Young Entrepreneurship Award” presented by Gov. Rick Scott and was selected by UCF to meet with Bill Gates in a one-on-one meeting.
As of recently, Capacitech has reached more than $1.4 million in capital, being named one of the Top 5 Supercapacitor Startups in the world. During this Sleppy has taken the time to mentor UCF students by guest speaking at UCF’s entrepreneurship programs, such as Blackstone Launchpad.
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