Last summer, while earning his master’s degree in Engineering, Alan Kalbfleisch took the weeklong Business Acumen course at Ivey. Here, he brewed up an idea that has since raised more than $120,000 in public and government support and took Kalbfleisch down a new path to entrepreneurship.
Related to this story
Kalbfleisch created the Pascal Press, described as a “coffee press that combines full immersion and pressure brewing of coffee for coffee lovers on the go.” He had the engineering skills to build the press, but turned to Kai Chen, Ivey MSc '17, and Andrey Khramtsoyv, incoming Ivey MSc student, for help with business strategy and marketing.
The team initially met through Engineers Without Borders at Western. Earlier this summer, their Kickstarter campaign raised $60,000 and they received a matching $60,000 from the Ontario Centres of Excellence SmartStart Seed Fund.
