At 17 years old, Isaac Purcell is the youngest ever winner of an Ideas Place Pitch Night, with his business idea for specialised vending machines catering to campers landing him $10,000 in seed funding.
Isaac was one of eight South West entrepreneurs who had five minutes to outline their innovative business idea at a Pitch Night in Noorat on September 4.
The Emmanuel College student said he felt well prepared after completing the Ideas Place Boot Camp - a series of workshops designed to help participants refine their idea and get their message across in an impactful way.
"I was pretty confident going in, but I wasn't expecting to come first. It was a nice surprise," he said.
"The Boot Camp was great.
"Liz (Ideas Place Facilitator Liz Grant) gave me so much good advice.
"Even if I didn't win, I know that with the advice she gave me and with the steps that she suggested I take that I would be ten steps ahead of where I would have been if I hadn't have joined the Boot Camp."
The young entrepreneur said that the idea struck him while on a family holiday in Singapore last year where he saw diverse vending machines for different purposes.
"I thought, why isn't there any of that down in Port Fairy and Warrnambool?" he said.
"I knew that if I kept waiting, I might manage to talk myself out of it.
"So I joined the Ideas Place and called up the caravan parks, arranged the vending machine suppliers, all the products.
"(As well as food) it's also got essentials like soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, portable chargers, batteries and feminine hygiene products.
"Most big vending machine businesses they just do standard products across all of their machines, whether they are in a caravan park or an airport.
"These vending machines provide products tailored to the needs of each individual caravan park."
Isaac expects to have his first machine ready to go by the summer.
"The $10,000 will be used to fund and stock the first machine, which will go in the Port Fairy Caravan Park," he said.
I'll be able to scale so much faster with this and meet the needs of the guests so much better.
"The plan is to start with one machine and then after getting the data from that machine I can tailor the products even more.
"Then somewhere throughout the summer holidays, then introduce a second machine."
Martha Rowe finished in second place at the Pitch Night and was awarded $5000 for her innovative saliva control product while Rob Herry came in third and won $3000 for his animal therapy farm for people with a disability.
While this is the final Ideas Place Pitch Night in this format as part of the current funding agreement, innovation never sleeps, and there is a Young Entrepreneurs Pitch Night at 6pm on Wednesday September 18 at Brauer College.
A partnership between the Neil Porter Legacy, The Ideas Place, Warrnambool City Council and Demo Dairy, four young entrepreneurs will pitch for a chance at $1000 while the careers department of the winner's school will receive $500.
You can book your free ticket at www.humanitix.com by searching "Young Entrepreneurs Night".
The Ideas Place is a program to help South West entrepreneurs and start-ups bring innovative ideas to market.
Made possible via LaunchVic funding, partners include Warrnambool, Moyne and Corangamite councils, South West TAFE, Great South Coast Food & Fibre, Fletcher Jones Family Foundations and What Your Customers Want.
