On March 26, around 20 Emerson students gathered in the Little Building to hear the founders of Nightcap, a company dedicated to counteracting drink spiking, speak about their product and experiences as young entrepreneurs.
Nightcap, founded by siblings Michael and Shirah Benarde, sells a range of preventative drink spiking products. The original and most known of their products is a scrunchie that transforms into a drink cover which the duo premiered on Shark Tank in 2021. Since their appearance on the show (and subsequent deal with millionaire Lori Greiner), Nightcap now partners with universities, bars, and police departments.
“We have a population of students that are interested in starting their own business,” Laura Owen, the associate director of wellness and health promotion in the Emerson Wellness Center, who organized the event, said. “In my time here, I’ve seen the [business of creative enterprises] major grow and more students are looking for advice and guidance in that area.”
Owen is also the leader of the Alcohol and Other Drugs task force on campus, which is a group of campus partners that promote education and make sure students know the policies around AOD, such as the Help Seeking Policy. The Benardes told The Beacon that they visit colleges once a month and came to Emerson specifically because they had a conference in the area.
“We had Nightcaps in our lobby waiting rooms and some of our [wellness] events,” she said, “but actually [the Benardes] reached out to our Risk Management office about coming to campus … so they brought it to the Wellness Center and I said absolutely I want to do that.”
While most attendees were engaged in the message and mission of the Nightcap founders, a few students also used the opportunity to practice their own pitches.
Lorenzo Halsey-Solomon, a junior business of creative enterprises major, asked the Benardes for advice with a pitch for his business.
“How do you make a hook and not have it be corny?” he asked the pair.
They suggested he tell a story or ask a question, but emphasized that the most important part of a pitch is enthusiasm.
“Think of it as like a hook on TikTok,” Shirah said. “We have 1.7 seconds to catch someone’s attention, so within the first few seconds we know if we’re listening to the whole thing or not, so just … be loud.”
Halsey-Solomon noted that a majority of events on campus are film related, but he told The Beacon he was glad Emerson was widening its scope and including more business-focused events.
“Business is important to learn in art settings because we learn how to make things, but we don’t learn how to sell what we make,” he said. “I think it’s doing a disservice to artists not learning how to make money off of what you’re passionate about.”
Allie Dening, a sophomore writing, literature, and publishing major, and Grey White, a sophomore visual media arts major, are both completing a minor in entrepreneurial studies. For the minor, students participate in the Emerson Experience in Entrepreneurship yearlong course.
Next year, the minor will be restructured and the course will have a new professor. As changes are being made, White and Dening are unsure about its future.
“The marketing for [the program] is not really reaching many people,” Dening said.
“I definitely recommend it,” White said, although “right now there’s a lot of budget cuts happening, especially with this one since there’s less people going into it.”
Unlike Michael, who completed his degree at Florida State University, Shirah did not complete college, but told The Beacon that “in highschool when they would bring in speakers, it was always really impactful.”
“I’ve always really enjoyed storytelling,” she said, “which has inspired me to do events like this one.”
