kendall buck
PHOTO COURTESY STETSON UNIVERSITY IS THIS A BILLION-DOLLAR IDEA? — Kendall Buck shows off her Herbtastic™, a kitchen tool that strips leaves from the stems of many types of herbs and spices. Buck, a junior majoring in entrepreneurship and management in Stetson’s School of Business Administration, invented the tool last year as a sophomore. The product was built at Stetson’s Innovation Lab. Buck is competing against 14 other entrepreneurs for $1 million in startup funding in Fox Business Network’s Billion Dollar Idea.

Stetson junior Kendall Buck, an entrepreneurship and management major, is being featured on a new TV show — Fox Business Network’s (FBN) Billion Dollar Idea, according to a news release from Stetson’s School of Business Administration.

On the show, Buck and other contestants are competing for $1 million in startup funding from billionaire entrepreneur Ben Weiss. The show debuted April 26 on FBN.

Buck is one of 15 elite entrepreneurs from 15 different cities who will go head-to-head, testing their ideas with the hopes of being the big winner. The show will air for weeks to come on Tuesday nights at 9 (ET).

Weiss famously created Bai, a revolutionary beverage company that was sold for $1.7 billion.

“I’ll put 15 entrepreneurs to the test to see who will win my investment. … What an amazing experience filming the show and working with these entrepreneurs — I can’t wait for everyone to tune in!” Weiss said about the show in the release.

Buck has already made news with her groundbreaking product, Herbtastic™, a kitchen tool that strips leaves from the stems of many types of herbs and spices. She has won several product competitions as part of Stetson’s highly successful Prince Entrepreneurship Leaders Program, the release noted.

As a sophomore, Buck created her product under the guidance of Lou Paris, professor and director of Stetson’s Joseph C. Prince Entrepreneurship Program, which houses the Prince Entrepreneurship Leaders Program. The product was built at Stetson’s Innovation Lab.

“Kendall had a spark in her eye,” Paris commented in the release. “She was very articulate and animated, and most importantly she had a deep desire to do it. You never know what you’re going to get as you start developing these ideas. Students can understandably get frustrated and fizzle out on it, but Kendall never did.”

“It never occurred to me that I could be doing this while I was in college,” Buck said about being an entrepreneur, according to the release. “The fact that Stetson encourages student entrepreneurship is amazing and opened up a lot of doors for me.”

Now, she has even bigger plans — on national TV.

Founded in 1883, Stetson University is the oldest private university in Central Florida. As Buck has proved, Stetson focuses on intense learning experiences in a supportive community that allows students to develop their voice in a connected, inclusive environment.

Stetson ranks in the top five on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Regional Universities (South) and is consistently recognized as one of The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges.

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