Gryphons' Den winners (l-r): Lexus Arbuckle, Ben Goldsmith, Michelle Rai, Allesandra Crossland, Sophie LeMay. Photo credit: Andrew Goodwin

The Gryphons’ Den is an annual pitch competition for the students in the Entrepreneurship course (MCS*4100) offered by the Department of Marketing and Consumer Studies. The event is modelled after CBC’s Dragons’ Den and ABC’s Shark Tank with a couple of notable differences: Students focus on designing a sustainable business model with a stable customer base that can generate repeatable business. The judges evaluate the desirability, feasibility and viability of the ideas as they are presented.

This year’s competition was judged by: Erin Skimson (Miovision), George Horhota (BrightLane), Iva Badjari (Danby), Josh Richardson (Dare Foods), and Michael Ruff (PepsiCo). The winning team, Lexus Arbuckle, Allesandra Crossland, Benjamin Goldsmith, Sophie Lemay and Michelle Rai, pitched a phone app called Perfect Playlist that allowed users to add songs to a queue and create a crowdsourced playlist for music at parties. But the interesting twist was that Perfect Playlist could be used by businesses (gyms, restaurants, doctors' offices, etc.) to allow customers control over the music in their establishments - instead of just streaming the radio or SiriusXM.