Students solve timed challenges at annual Ideathon held at Five Below's headquarters

Penn's Baker Retailing Center held its annual Ideathon, where 20 student teams worked on the retail challenges presented to them by executives from Five Below. 

At the Ideathon, teams had 24 hours to develop solutions to retail challenges and create a presentation. This year's corporate partner, Five Below, randomly assigned each team one of two challenges. Each team then had the opportunity to present to Five Below executives and faculty judges for a chance to win first-place prizes of $10,000 or second-place prizes of $5,000. 

This year’s competition, which took place on Sept. 22, was distinctive because it was hosted at Wowtown, Five Below’s headquarters in downtown Philadelphia, while previous years’ competitions were hosted at nearby hotels. Susan McMullen, Director of Academic and Industry Partnerships at Baker, helped plan and run the Ideathon with her team.

“Wowtown is a really cool collaborative working space with reclaimed wood, lots of natural light, and really cool design features,” she said. “It gives you a really good energized feeling just walking into the space.”

Wowtown has a concept store, as well as a brick-and-mortar store on the bottom floor. At the event, students could access both stores while they worked, McMullen said. 

During the competition, McMullen took on the role of facilitating introductions and meetings between Five Below executive mentors and student teams. She spoke about how instrumental Kenn Bull, Chief Operating Officer of Five Below, was in organizing and putting on the event.

Bull spoke at the event, presented the challenges, and helped decide what data was available to students. Part of Bull’s executive team was also there to mentor the students while they worked, as well as several other Five Below employees who were there to do student tours of the space and act as additional mentors. 

Wharton junior and exchange student Luca Bisi, who was part of the team that won the first challenge of forming a loyalty program for Five Below, felt that the experience of being mentored late into the night at Wowtown emphasized the energetic, innovative atmosphere of the company. 

“My favorite part was the point when we had to brainstorm all these different ideas and pick one,” he said. “I played the part of stress-testing each idea. For example, one of our ideas was to gamify the app. So I’d ask why should I play a game on the loyalty app when I have Clash Royale or Clash of Clans, which are actually games?”

While many students signed up with their teams, some, like Wharton MBA first year and winner of the first challenge Delaney Sheetz, formed their teams upon arriving at the event. Sheetz found that coming together with students from different schools was their key to success, as they could provide different perspectives and skills in planning. 

“Having two people who didn't come from [a consulting] background to challenge some ideas, I think, ultimately led to better outcomes,” Sheetz said. “I would say it was a mix of our experience, like knowing how to do a consulting project and approach a problem like this, but also having people question us along the way so that we weren't all thinking exactly the same.”

College and Wharton junior Aravind Krishnan believed his team’s life sciences and healthcare background led them to their winning idea for Five Below’s next big thing: Expanding Five Below to new markets with pop-up shops that can have Five Below products for public and private events.

“A few people on the team have worked on a similar idea for healthcare applications, like mobile clinics for underserved markets,” he said. “While at first glance it might appear that only people in retail or marketing are fit for Ideathon, we all gained transferable skills and learned how to apply retail principles to a background in life science and healthcare.”

Throughout the competition, students also had opportunities to be creative and have fun. At the same time, they worked splatter paint stations, customizable Converse shoes, and more experiential stations aimed at giving teams a mental breather.

College junior Diya Amlani, whose team worked on the second challenge, appreciated the emphasis on the creative process and recommended Ideathon not just to those in retail or marketing but to anyone who enjoys applying creativity to new problems and challenges.

“As a team, I feel like we learned a lot about idea generation in terms of how you actually use the research that you get, like financial statements and market research, and convert that into a tangible idea that you build from the ground up,” she said. “The best solutions are the ones that come from places you wouldn't expect.”