Last night, Mark, Cassie, Thao and I dug deep in our closets, pulled out a few business accessories and donned our best “business casual” attire to take a field trip to Cal Prep Academy.

Don't we look just dapper?

We had the illustrious honor of serving on a judging panel for BUILD’s second showcase of the academic year. BUILD is a four-year program that teaches students about real-world entrepreneurial skills. This means that they get to come up with a business plan and hone their idea with the potential to take it all the way to production.

6 teams presented their business plans for us. The students showed off lovely power point presentations of some stellar COGS projections and some lovely marketing plans. Pretty fun stuff.

We were nervous. Not gonna lie. Holding a microphone and inquiring on the nitty gritty details of how a sticker-making business will make a profit in their first quarter or questioning the margins of a custom sweatshirt company or what was the creative inspiration behind a company that makes made-to-order belt buckles, is intimidating.

And, as a result, we asked some tough questions. We drilled them, in fact. And then scored their wonderfully, well-thought out presentations.

They all did great but in the end G.A.A.M, the makers of those sought after custom sweatshirts, won it all.

Though, they're all winners in our hearts.