{"id":159605,"date":"2024-10-24T11:53:27","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T17:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=159605"},"modified":"2024-10-24T11:53:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T17:53:30","slug":"a-revolutionary-business-venture-takes-off-with-help-from-uccs-rafael-de-la-vega","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=159605","title":{"rendered":"A revolutionary business venture takes off, with help from UCCS | Rafael De la Vega"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rafael De la Vega<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Rafael De la Vega is the co-founder and CEO at Salt Athletic<\/a>, a pioneering sports brand with patented smell-proof technology for shoe bags – think stinky soccer cleats left in a hot car all weekend after a tournament. Thanks to products like the A\u0113rcase Cleat Bag, you\u2019ll no longer be left with a terrible smell for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rafael was able to start building Salt Athletic thanks, in part, to a 2022 Colorado Springs Torch Grant.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Torch Grants are part of the El Pomar Institute for Innovation and Commercialization (EPIIC) Venture Attractor program<\/a>. Founded in 2019 by Tom Duening, El Pomar Chair for Business & Entrepreneurship at UCCS, EPIIC supports the sectors of sports and outdoors, health innovation and human performance. Torch Grants are funded by donors and in-kind donations and provide support and connections to scaling startups to ready them for future investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those vying for a Torch Grant attend a four-month virtual camp where they\u2019re paired with intense 1:1 mentorship. They then have the opportunity to compete for the grant, provided they commit to reside and scale in Colorado Springs for at least a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rafael won and was given a $50,000 grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Torch Grant saved our company and allowed us to scale to $1,000,000 in annual revenue without having to secure additional outside funding,\u201d Rafael said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He credits Duening, as well as Luke Doster, EPIIC Program and Outreach Manager, and Terry Boult, El Pomar Endowed Chair of Innovation and Security and Professor of Computer Science, with helping Salt Athletic succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey all were involved since the very beginning and helped guide our decision-making process in the early days to be able to scale and bring our product to more than 30,000 households around the nation,\u201d Rafael said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The faculty at UCCS, he said, are willing to give more time and attention to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was an openness to new ideas and my sometimes-unorthodox way of being,\u201d he said, referring to his time at UCCS. \u201cI felt that most other institutions I had evaluated were too rigid in their approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revolutionary business Rafael helped create is thriving and he doesn\u2019t see things slowing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve been mostly building and scaling the company,\u201d Rafael said of his recent work. \u201cWe have brought distribution to the national level. We’ve partnered with many professional teams and players and have developed new patents to bring our technology further.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His drive and desire to build a business started as a first-generation immigrant from La Paz, Bolivia. Rafael said growing up in a country in the developing world forced him to be resourceful and learn how to solve problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy family is very entrepreneurial and from a young age I heard stories of building businesses and knew that I too wanted to do something like that,\u201d he said. \u201cI either wanted to go into a role with investments or start a company. In starting the company, I ended up doing both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the help from the Torch Grant and the faculty at UCCS, Rafael said it made all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was an absolute game changer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rafael De la Vega is the co-founder and CEO at Salt Athletic, a pioneering sports brand with patented smell-proof technology. Rafael was able to start building Salt Athletic thanks, in part, to a 2022 Colorado Springs Torch Grant. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":159607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,429],"tags":[193,332],"class_list":["post-159605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-distinctive-programs","tag-el-pomar-institute-for-innovation-and-commercialization","tag-more-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/De-La-Vega-Communique-Featured-Image.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-Fwh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159608,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159605\/revisions\/159608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/159607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}