At the penultimate TIA Incubator session of the spring, the atmosphere was centered around themes of wellness, growth, and new beginnings. Saturday morning kicked off with pitches from two student-athlete entrepreneurs before they had to race down the hill for their track meet in Sanford Field House.
Andrew Sullivan ’26 energetically presented his competition athletic-gear solution, Oasis Running. Sullivan shared with the panelists his perspective about how leading brands — such as Nike and Under Armour — produce running singlets that are overpriced, inaccessible, and lack customization. Oasis Running combats these drawbacks by designing creative, lightweight, and economic singlets for high school and college-level track and field teams.
Following Sullivan’s pitch, Liz Manly ’27 brought ERM Consulting fresh out of Idea Squad to the podium. ERM Consulting is a venture to support other ventures. During her time in Idea Squad, Manly found that TIA startups hit speed bumps when facing complex and tedious financial tasks. Since establishing her business, Manly has built a relationship with one TIA venture and is actively looking for two more to help her find her footing. Her compelling pitch caught the attention of the weekend’s keynote speaker, Kelly Springer, who asked Manly to consult for her company.
Springer is a registered dietician and the founder of Kelly’s Choice, a company dedicated to educating people on what healthy living actually means. Despite her vast accomplishments, Springer emphasized that her entrepreneurial journey was not an overnight success and that she was no stranger to obstacles in her way. Her story started when she was only 16, pushing snack carts in a hospital, sparking her lifelong passion for nutrition. After this introduction to the field, Springer was motivated to further her knowledge on diet and health, leading her to pursue a master’s degree in health education at SUNY Cortland.
Early in her career, Springer worked as one of the first wellness dietitians at Wegmans, the grocery chain founded in upstate New York. She found inspiration in this: Preventative nutrition could significantly reduce health claims, so she envisioned what scaling diet education beyond simply hospitals to occupy corporate spaces could look like. However, she was only able to reach so many people as one dietician; that was, until she experienced a drastic lifestyle change.
“Wegmans was that jumping off moment in time, because I was able to see how all of my passions came to life,” Springer recalled.
While going through divorce and supporting two young children, Springer faced a choice: she could ignore her life’s calling, or take a big leap. So, she gathered other passionate dietitians and taught them her method, thus giving rise to Kelly’s Choice. To this day, Kelly’s Choice has a network of 30 dietitians and will soon be scaling to 100. Her company intersects private practice through insurance-covered nutrition services, workplace wellness initiatives, and media and brand partnerships with an emphasis on evidence-based nutrition. Springer notes the enterprise as “Real people promoting real food.”
“Nutrition is personal, and it should be personal. There should be a human touch to it,” Springer said.
Springer reminded students that no success comes without challenges, citing that women are less than 1% of the recipients of venture capital funding. She also noted that she faces daily moments of self-doubt. However, she explained how pivoting does not indicate failure, but rather growth. Additionally, she advised students to take risks and join associations they’re interested in, but also to take time and build skills before launching.
Overall, Springer’s message to students was to recognize that entrepreneurship is constant adaptation — but identifying a problem and committing to it can grow exponentially. “You’ve got to pivot. You’ve got to keep pivoting,” Springer advised.
As the keynote concluded and the room shifted to lunch, students and mentors alike approached Springer to share their stories and ask questions, wrapping up another successful TIA Incubator session.