Startup success

The third time was the charm: He and co-founder Alex Chaplin, BS ’12, MS ’13, nabbed second place and $10,000 in seed capital for Vonvo, an online news medium that used video conferencing to discuss under-reported issues.

The company got off the ground and launched its first website in 2012. Over the next two years, Ringelheim and his team built two more sites and raised more than $150,000 from angel investors.

However, Vonvo ultimately closed. Today, Ringelheim is a business development freelancer at ListenLoop, a marketing software startup, and PhunkeeDuck, a cross between a Segway and a skateboard that's been featured on "The Tonight Show."

Success and failure

One of Ringelheim's proudest accomplishments is launching Vonvo without any technical background. The site attracted paying users with a feature-rich, well-designed platform, but failed to achieve product/market fit.

"Any entrepreneurial venture is a learning experience; there's no playbook to follow as problems pop up," he says. "For every Facebook, there are thousands of companies that weren't able to achieve that. You need to be comfortable with failing fast, so you can adjust your plan and try again."

Time management

Now juggling two growing startups, Ringelheim works at least 60 hours a week and must prioritize effectively. At ListenLoop, he schedules demonstrations and meetings for prospective clients and investors. For PhunkeeDuck and its parent company, PhunkeeTree, Ringelheim makes sales calls and manages a team of interns.

"When I started at PhunkeeTree/PhunkeeDuck, we didn't have a website for one of our key products and our current website needed improvement," he says. "I understood how to accomplish those things quickly through my experience with Vonvo."

Lasting connections

For Ringelheim, everything has come full circle; his partner on his first two Panasci bids, Matt Waxman, BS ’11, co-founded PhunkeeTree/PhunkeeDuck. "The Panasci competition was extremely influential in shaping my development," Ringelheim says. "Pitching in front of those prestigious judges only further stimulated my entrepreneurial fumes."

Written by Matthew Biddle, this story originally appeared as part of the cover feature in the autumn 2015 issue of Buffalo Business.