BusinessWeek: Wisconsin Undergrad Among “America's Best Young Entrepreneurs”
Corey Capasso
For the second year in a row, an undergraduate of the Wisconsin School of Business was named a finalist in BusinessWeek’s annual search to discover the most promising young entrepreneurs in the U.S.
This year’s finalist is Corey Capasso, 21, a senior specializing in entrepreneurship and risk management. His company, Add the Flavor LLC, is devoted to commercial development of a plastic capable of emitting flavors that can be used in everything from baby pacifiers to water bottles.
BusinessWeek had asked its readers to nominate 25 candidates aged 25 and under who are “running their own companies that show potential for growth and establish the talent of the founders behind them.”
Add the Flavor is the third company that Capasso, who calls himself a “serial entrepreneur,” has launched.”
At 16, the native of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, he started a company to buy overstocked tennis shoes and re-sell them online.
At 19, he co founded the ExchangeHut Network, a popular online ticketing exchange network for students, that was acquired by CDI America in 2008
His third company, Add the Flavor, grew from an idea Capasso had of incorporating flavor into plastic. For advice on overcoming the significant technical challenges, he turned to Tim Osswald, the director of the Polymer Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To bring the product to market, Add the Flavor entered into a joint venture with A. Schulman Inc., a global provider of plastic resins and additive innovation. According to Capasso, his firm currently has four letters of intent from companies that plan to use the firm’s product, called PolyFlav, in their products.
As to his future career plans, Capasso said he would like to continue to launch companies and then move on. “I have so many ideas. By the time I’m 30 or 35, I hope to be a venture capitalist and be investing in and advising other people’s start-ups.”
Last year’s finalist in BusinessWeek’s “Best Young Entrepreneurs” list from Wisconsin was Ashutosh Gupta, a finance and entrepreneur major, who was recognized for his financial consulting firm.
The winner of this year’s BusinessWeek search will be selected the end of September, based on online voting.
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