Three students from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will compete among some of the nation’s premiere schools this September in the finals of Texas A&M University’s “Building a Better Future Through Business and AI” National Undergraduate Pitch Competition.
Chad Tjugum, an entrepreneurship major from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, founded Recrura, a startup driven by artificial intelligence that matches employers with candidates that fit the qualifications of open jobs. The platform tackles inefficiencies in the job search process using agentic AI, in which AI agents take autonomous action to achieve pre-defined goals as established by humans.
Bella Biever, who graduated with a B.S. in communication in May, oversees the startup’s marketing and analytics. Sadiq Wanyaka, a computer science major from Madison, Wisconsin, is a programmer for the company. UW-Madison student John Mertz is also a programmer for the team.
“All of these students are intelligent, capable people — the kind you want to represent the university,” said Bill Dougan, professor of management and co-director of UW-Whitewater’s Launch Pad, a startup business accelerator that provided mentoring and support to Tjugum.
Recrura, which also launched an AI voice interview practice tool for students over the summer, advanced from a field of 24 teams that gave a virtual pitch to a panel of AI and business experts in July. The team will present its startup plans in person on September 19-20 in College Station, Texas, for cash prizes awarded to the top three placers and the opportunity to be paired with an entrepreneur mentor from Texas A&M for one year.
Other finalists include student teams from the University of Houston, George Washington University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Maryland, the University of Texas, and Texas A&M.
Initially, students from 37 universities across the nation submitted 103 proposals for the competition. Proposals were evaluated on their potential for innovation, market potential, feasibility, and impact, according to the university’s Mays Business School.
The road to Texas
Recrura entered the competition after being invited to e-Fest, a prestigious national pitch competition for undergraduate students run by a foundation at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Out of 220 teams who entered, Recrura earned a spot in the top 25 and a small cash prize.
As they compete around the nation for startup funding, the team is working with universities to build professional talent pools they can eventually sell to businesses.
“They’ve put this startup together in the kind of rapid fashion that is often described in the press,” Dougan said. “The team members have been working very hard on the business, and they have achieved some pretty notable success in a short period of time.”
Biever also participated in the Innovation Challenge, a sub-competition at the e-Fest event, and won a cash prize as a member of the winning team in that contest. The contest challenged students to create plans and a presentation for a brand-new business and present the plan to judges within a five-hour window.
An accomplished graduate
A Stewartville, Minnesota, native, Biever was initially attracted to UW-Whitewater’s location between Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago.
“I loved how updated everything was,” she said. “As soon as I stepped onto campus, it felt like a place I was going to grow. The more I learned about UW-Whitewater, the more I liked it.”
Biever was highly decorated as an executive board member of UW-Whitewater’s DECA team during her tenure on campus. She was hired before graduation and continues to work as a wedding planner with Graceful Events in Lake Geneva.
A seasoned startup veteran
Tjugum’s path to Whitewater included a gap year after graduating from Sun Prairie East High School. His journey at UW-Whitewater includes work on a rare coin wholesale company that’s earned Launch Pad assistance and received several awards as part of the DECA team.
Tjugum cited the College of Business and Economics as a key factor in joining the Warhawk family.
“I had a couple of friends who went there, and I visited them and saw the campus,” he said. “I enjoyed the process, the programs, and the professors during my time on campus.”
Tjugum continues to work in consultation with others, including gener8tor, one of the most successful business accelerators in the nation that has provided funding for more than 1,600 startups.
“Startups rely on outside team members and resources as much as inside team members and resources because of the uncertainty and the significant amounts of change, revision, and exploration required to make them successful,” Dougan said. “The resulting need for creativity, effort, insight, and improvisation prompt the folks who fund startups to bet on a team as much as they bet on an idea.”
A transfer success story
Wanyaka is also a Launch Pad scholar and is a member of UW-Whitewater’s national championship-winning Enactus team that will represent the United States later this month — one week after the Recrura team trip to Texas A&M — at the Enactus World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand.
Wanyaka stepped onto campus in 2023 after transferring from another institution, citing affordability and community as the top draws to UW-Whitewater. He quickly discovered the resources — including the talented people — available on campus.
“The things I wanted out of UW-Whitewater came true,” he said. “I had a great love for programming, so I couldn’t grow into entrepreneurship smoothly. I needed support for that transition, and that’s when I joined clubs like Enactus and worked with people like Chad.”
Faculty support along the way
Each member of the dynamic Warhawk trio has benefitted from their experiences at UW-Whitewater as they continue to pitch Recrura around the nation.
Dougan and Frank Lanko, business career services manager at UW-Whitewater, are advising the group. Wanyaka lauded the support of Dougan, Lanko, and David Gee, a co-director of Launch Pad, through the process of building the business.
“They have been with us through the competitions and helping us practice our presentation styles,” Wanyaka said. “They’ve been there from the beginning.”
