Minnesota Cup Company Feature: Co-Lab

Minnesota Cup is featuring companies planning to enter this year's competition from now until May 9th! This week's lucky winner is University of Minnesota startup, Co-Lab!

Who are you? Tell us about your company.
Katrina Becker, Logan Penovich, Jon Melgaard. We are all seniors in the Carlson School of Management. Katrina and Jon are studying Entrepreneurial Management and Public/Nonprofit Management, and Logan is studying Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing. We officially launched Co-Lab on February 13th of this year so have only been in business for a month and a half, but have been planning it since October.

What is your product/idea?
Co-Lab is the first collaborative workspace at the University of Minnesota that aims to bring together students from all areas of study who want to work on developing entrepreneurial solutions to real-world challenges. Members pay either a monthly or semester fee and have unrestricted access to the space, as well as access to our broad range of in-house services. These services are provided by Co-Lab fellows, who are volunteer students that provide their expertise in graphic design, marketing, website and app development, among others. We hope to create a network of these collaborative workspaces at Universities across the Midwest!

How did you come up with the idea?
In Entre in Action, we spend the first semester as a class brainstorming ideas for possible businesses. The idea for Co-Lab came from us realizing the need for collaboration between students and groups across campus, as well as the desire for students to have a creative environment and appropriate resources to push their ideas forward.

What are you most excited about for the Minnesota Cup?
We can't wait to help students develop their ideas for the cup, and are inspired by all of the innovative ideas that have come out of the Minnesota Cup in the past!