Catching up with Elias Zeina, NYBPC past participant

We caught up with Elias Zeina, a 2019 NYBPC Finalist, to chat about his experience at the NYBPC and to see what’s he’s been up to since the competition.

How has your experience with the NYBPC helped your entrepreneurial journey?

My experience with the NYBPC was transformative. Our professor Dr. Robert Edgell (SUNY Poly) guided my team and I through an intensive semester-long class where we brainstormed, collaborated, and executed a business idea. From the start, our team was connected with professionals that helped develop our idea into what could have been a practical and functioning business in our community. At the regional and state competitions, our team received a tremendous amount of constructive feedback from judges that helped refine our ideas even more. The entire process gave me the strategic planning and creative thinking skills as well as the confidence to open my own business. I recommend every student who wishes to embark on an entrepreneurial journey to go through this process.

Could you name any important people or mentors who have helped you along the way?

Professor Dr. Robert Edgell of SUNY Poly was the key driver behind our team's success at the NYBPC. He connected us with industry professionals and orchestrated an intense semester-long class designed to build a bulletproof business plan that could be a practical and functioning business in our community. He continued to ask us "big picture" questions that helped strategically pivot our plan into what started as a mediocre plan, to a robust one that brought our team to the state competition. Taking a class with Dr. Edgell would be the most important decision a student could make because he genuinely cares about their success.

What are one or two milestones you've achieved since the competition?
Since the competition, I have opened a quick-service spinoff of my family's traditional Lebanese restaurant called Lafa Mediterranean by Zeina's in the Utica, NY area. This technologically-driven restaurant concept serving modern Mediterranean cuisine is the first of its kind in the Mohawk Valley region. My entrepreneurial spirit was born at a young age however, I do not feel I would have the confidence and skills necessary to start my own business if it weren't for my experience with the NYBPC.