Sarah Schark and Tommaso Bagon

Tommaso Bagon, Sarah Schark and Pietro Bagon were really onto something when they presented SocialBite at Flagler College’s Business Week 2020, hoping to go all the way with their friend-approved app. The annual Business Week provides students from any major the opportunity to present ideas during a week-long schedule of events and competitions. To prepare for Business Week, they researched their target market and possible revenue streams to make the product viable. Voila! SocialBite – taking the stress out of choosing your next dining experience.

Tommaso and Sarah submitted their idea for participation in the academic week’s culminating event, The Lion’s Cage. As a highly competitive event, it draws a crowd including the public, potential business mentors, college donors and Flagler faculty from across disciplines. The Business Week academic program is co-hosted by and supported with funds for the winners by the Flagler College Business Advisory Board.

“I remember that I was eating with the team in Columbus, Georgia and checking my phone every two seconds to see if the result came in, and a professor of mine texted me that we won,” said Bagon.

Tommaso, now graduated, was a double major in Business Administration and Marketing. He was also a key player on the Saint’s NCAA II men’s tennis team. In fact, the team was traveling at the time of the actual presentation, so Bagon had to follow along from afar and let Sarah do the heavy lifting of the actual presentation. She had done it – she presented their idea and won first place at The Lion’s Cage.

Sarah is also a double major – Coastal Environmental Science and Strategic Communication – as well as played a major role on the volleyball team, all while maintaining part-time jobs to help her pay for things while in school.

Sarah explained that winning the Lion’s Cage event, and the subsequent grant money that comes with the win, will help them continue developing this idea into a viable business.

“This was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for SocialBite,” she said.

For now, the future is: “Marketing, marketing, marketing,” said Sarah on what they’ll be doing with their business venture this summer now that the spring semester is completed. She’s in her final semester at Flagler with an expected graduation date of August 2020. Tommaso currently commits his time to testing the app and tweaking it accordingly.

Hopefully in the near future, we’ll all be grabbing our burgers with virtually no stress, as our new app will have guided us to the perfect place to enjoy one.

To hear more on SocialBite with Tommaso and Sarah, check out Flagler Footnotes, a WFCF 88.5FM production.

To see what all the buzz is about for SocialBite, visit the app’s webpage here.