Newhouse Graduate Students Win for Streaming Platform Idea in Entrepreneurship Competition

A class project usually doesn’t go any further than a submission and a final presentation. But what if the project could go beyond the classroom and be used in the real world? 

This was the question that Newhouse television, radio and film graduate students Asha Breedlove, Anthony H. Smith Jr., Bryson Carter and Stacey Collier pondered in assistant teaching professor Melissa Martinez’s Industry Forces course about their inventive project: HBeatzCU.

This semester, the group entered their idea into the Afropreneurship Celebration and Business Competition hosted by Syracuse University Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad, winning a $1,500 prize for their proposal.

HBeatzCU is a streaming platform dedicated to showcasing sports, entertainment and original content from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The idea was first developed in class following a prompt that asked students to come up with a business that the media industry lacks. According to Smith, Collier came up with an idea for a music platform, and with the assistance of his group, decided on merging music and sports from HBCUs to shine a light on the culture of these historic universities. 

HBeatzCU has become more than just an idea. Below, the four founders share how they developed this business venture and their goals for the platform. 

What was a challenge and a victory you navigated in preparing for the competition and creating HBeatzCU? 

Breedlove: One challenge was making sure that everything was set – dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. When continuing a class assignment, you have to make sure everything is up to par and recognize that this is more than a class assignment now. 

All victories are good victories, including winning the competition. Winning was a steppingstone to knowing that this can be a real business in the real world. HBeatzCU is now an idea that is sustainable amongst things that others are doing. The Industry Forces [course] and Professor Melissa Martinez pushed us to do something with this. Anthony pushed us to keep going. All major small businesses started from college ideas, including Facebook. 

Bryson, you said HBeatzCU is “a movement to amplify the culture, talent and stories that make HBCUs so special.” Why? 

Carter: When examining HBCUs, there is a lot of untapped talent and potential that get overlooked by coverage [from predominantly white institutions]. My motto to this is “find a way and make one.” Hustle culture is to get it in any way you can, and there’s no mountain that you can’t climb.  

Arts, people and geniuses don’t get the opportunities at HBCUs and it makes me sad. I wish they had access to these [Newhouse] resources, and they don’t have the funding all the time to do this kind of stuff. You can’t sell anything without an audience. Friends of mine who attend HBCUs have said that this platform would be important to athletes to secure NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals, and provide a grand level of exposure to opportunities. 

Stacey, you described this team as ‘wonderful.’ What made working with each other so impactful? 

Collier: It is great to work with people that want similar things. I wasn’t around media people growing up, and Syracuse has been amazing with its communications community. Anthony pays attention to detail and initiative, Bryson has a creative mind, Asha is a ball of energy and I add what I can to the mix. I always thought about creating a platform for Black entertainment and education, and seeing this birthed in a classroom is amazing. 

How has your Newhouse education and experience guided you in developing HBeatzCU?  

Breedlove: Newhouse has so many opportunities in working and networking. And this project is an example of that. You can take note of what everyone has, similar to gumbo where there’s a lot of different [ingredients] but when put together, it’s good. You can forge your way to success how you see fit.  

Collier: I came in equipped with knowledge already, but Newhouse equipped me with the resources. I was able to be connected with people who want similar things. 

What is next for HBeatzCU?  

Smith: We are working to finalize the project for this upcoming fall. We cannot share everything right now, but we are doing the behind-the-scenes work that we are excited to share eventually.