Mississippi State University students Hagan Walker and Kaylie Mitchell, creators of the product Glo, were recipients of the Innovate Mississippi New Venture Challenge on Nov. 1.   
The Innovate Mississippi New Venture Challenge is competition that ignites entrepreneurship in Mississippi, giving participants an opportunity to see what other innovators are doing around the state and evaluating one’s own product as well. It gives those innovators an opportunity to connect with others and possibly receive funding. Innovate Mississippi is a company who works to help newly founded companies get off the ground by providing insight and advice.  
Mitchell said the competition helped encourage Walker and her entrepreneurship with their product. 
“My favorite part of the competition would have to be the outreach opportunity,” Mitchell said. “As a student start up, we get to see other companies that are farther along with larger networks; and we get to learn from them and see what has worked best for their company.”
Once a year, they host the New Venture Challenge– a competition between new businesses in Mississippi. 
After giving a pitch to describe the product Glo, Mitchell and Walker were awarded first place, receiving $3,000 and in-kind services to many state-owned businesses and advising with lawyers, advisors, and financial companies, all to help guide their company to success.
The product Glo itself is a small unit that looks similar to an ice cube. Walker said one simply places it in any beverage, and it lights up automatically. 
“Of course, this makes your drink look really cool,” Walker said, “but the real reason for using Glo is that it saves the customer time and makes restaurants more money.”
Since the unit is liquid activated, Glo turns off when one gets close to finishing a drink– allowing a server to see, at a glance, who needs a refill.  
According to Mitchell, the initial idea for Glo started in one of her graphic design classes. Mitchell began to pursue it through the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach on campus and brought Walker on to help make her idea a reality. 
“I think Hagan and I are passionate about it because we see the potential of it helping people have better service and a better experience overall,” Mitchell said.
Walker said Glo has steadily progressed in the past year and a half since the product was created.  The official launch of Glo was this past August and a video was released on Facebook in collaboration with a page called Tipsy Bartender.  Roughly 100,000 views were expected but the video received 5.4 million views.  
“It was incredible and really helped us with sales,” Walker said. “We just completed an order for Caesars Entertainment in Las Vegas. People love Glo and I think this was apparent in our presentation.”
The progress does not end with The Innovate Mississippi New Venture Challenge victory. Walker said Glo is moving to bigger office space this month in Starkville and just came up with a deal to have another video launched online with a company called Viral Thread, the sixth largest media company in the world, similar to BuzzFeed. 
“We’re just getting off of the ground,” Walker said.  
Glo is hoping for up to 20 million views on this video, with lots of sales.  
Mitchell said she sees a future with Glo.
“We hope to be able to make a full-time position for me with Glo starting in January,” Mitchell said.  
Glo is currently looking for interns in marketing and sales with hopes to make the company grow enough to get the attention of some “larger” brands. 
Glo is the first, liquid activated, lighted drink infuser.  More information on Glo can be found at www.getglo.com.