A team of LMU graduate business students once again claimed victory at the national IDEAcorps MBA Consulting Challenge hosted by Loyola University New Orleans on March 21-25, 2025. This annual competition provides students the opportunity to assist small businesses averaging $250,000 in revenue over two months by delivering real-world solutions and actionable strategies, culminating in a six-minute presentation to a panel of judges.
LMU’s interdisciplinary team, comprised of MBA students Christian Ortiz, Jacqueline Meyer, and Luke Petrarca, M.S. in Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Innovation (MSESI) student Jillian Butler, and M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) student Wilson Chatham, with support from Dante Shoghanian (MSBA) and Theophilus Essilfie (MSESI), showcases LMU College of Business Administration’s cross-program collaborative approach, which is facilitated by our small class sizes. Jason D’Mello, associate professor of entrepreneurship, and Jose Garcia, assistant director for the Fred Kiesner Center for Entrepreneurship, served as co-coaches and faculty advisors.
The first-place win earned $5,000 for LMU and $20,000 for their client, Tipzy, an AI-powered music platform that helps bars create playlists and manage song requests to boost customer engagement.
In a similar fashion to their triumphant win last year, the LMU team took a very hands-on approach that went well beyond traditional business analysis. Over the two months, they worked closely with Tipzy and immersed themselves in real-world environments. They organized live events, the first in Los Angeles during spring break at Cinco, which brought over 50 participants to test Tipzy’s platform in a real bar setting. This event generated real-time user feedback that had a major impact on their strategy and recommendations.
They also developed technology using the MSBA team members’ programming skills to create a revenue calculator that helps bar owners adopt Tipzy. The students also drew upon their own experiences to create new product features that were built and tested during the client partnership.
The team showed a strong sense of purpose and collaboration that elevated their work beyond expectations. “They weren’t just trying to win a competition—they genuinely cared about delivering value to the client and learning from every step of the process,” said Garcia. “Watching them grow into a high-performing, collaborative unit was incredibly rewarding.”
The students delved deep into the industry, leveraging communities, and building contacts to find real-world solutions to help this new company go to market. For instance, they crafted a sales strategy using a college ambassador program after consulting with LMU alumni such as Franky Bernstein ’16, who advised them on a realistic strategy that could yield real results beyond hypotheticals after he built similar programs for Lyft and Uber. The team also reached out to entrepreneurs who were unsuccessful in selling to bars to learn how to introduce technologies to this difficult demographic. In addition, weeks of work were spent developing a sophisticated CRM strategy that was delivered to the client, but ultimately only comprised one bullet point on a slide, highlighting how much work was done that wasn’t able to fit into the six-minute presentation.
D’Mello is proud of the students’ dedication to delivering tangible results for the client. “What set this team apart was the sheer depth of their commitment,” he said. “They worked for weeks balancing academics, jobs, and family obligations—yet they delivered real solutions, built actual tools, and formed genuine relationships. The students went far beyond what’s expected in a competition setting.”
