Junior wins first round of Marietta College's PioBiz competition

Parkersburg native Karson Snyder claims $140 prize with 'Hidden Talent'

by Tom Perry

Marietta, Ohio (10/22/2019) — Marietta College's Karson Snyder '21 (Parkersburg, West Virginia) plans to revolutionize the way athletic recruiting services help high school students connect with colleges around the U.S.

Snyder unveiled his idea, "Hidden Talents," during the first round of Marietta College's PioBiz competition and he claimed the top spot on Thursday, October 17th.

Hidden Talents is a business he hopes to start after he graduates from Marietta.

"It is an athletic recruiting service that helps underprivileged and underexposed high school athletes," he said. " The problem with the other services in the industry is that they charge an overpriced fee and are more interested in personal profit, then having the athlete's best interest in mind."

During PioBiz, Snyder shared the concept to offer a $100-per-month, subscription-based model that the athlete can cancel anytime.

"This is completely different than the top competitors in the market because they charge a one-time fee of anywhere from $1,200 to $2,500," Snyder said. "This is not affordable for the majority of families. Another aspect is that the athlete can cancel any time, if I help them find their dream school within two months it is unfair for them to continue paying 10-months-worth of a service that is unwanted or unneeded."

For his efforts, Snyder also claimed the $140 top prize and he will have a chance to develop his concept more and make presentations at the next two PioBiz competitions.

"I plan to completely take over the recruiting process, which means creating highlight films, contacting college coaches via email, text, calls, helping athletes find worthy exposure camps to attend, and providing overall guidance and advice from a former collegiate athlete," he said.

A total of 22 ideas were presented in Round 1. PioBiz is a Business Start-Up Competition with a final award of $10,000. The competition is open to all Marietta College students and their partners. Throughout the 2019-20 academic year, students compete in three rounds of competition.

Round 1 of the PioBiz Competition simply consists of identifying a problem that is worth solving and describing the solution. The proposed solution must potentially lead to the establishment of a for-profit or non-profit business organization.

During the competition, each team displays a 3-foot-by-4-foot poster to describe the problem and its proposed solution. The team members had an opportunity to describe their products or services to the judges and the other members of the community and answered questions.

Round out the Top 10 from Round 1 were:

The judges and other members of the community jointly determined the winners in Round 1. Each judge assigned a score between 0 to 20 points to each project. Each member of the community was provided with 1,000 PioBiz dollars to invest on their favorite projects. Each 100 PioBiz dollar was equivalent to one point.

Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy back in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers more than 50 majors and is consistently ranked as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review, as well as one of the nation's best by Forbes.com. Marietta was selected seventh in the nation according to the Brookings Institution's rankings of colleges by their highest value added, regardless of major. Marietta College has also been named a Great College to Work For two consecutive years (2018 and 2019).

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