Entrepreneurial students gear up for New York trip, thanks to ‘fixie’ business

Chapman students Ben Petraglia, Jimmy Standley, Ryan Mick travel to New York this week to receive entrepreneur award.

Three Chapman University students who run a thriving business importing trendy fixed-gear “fixie” bicycles have been named the winners of a coveted student entrepreneur award.

Jimmy Standley ’13, Ryan Mick ’13 and Benjamin Petraglia ’12 will be inducted into the 2012 Kairos 50 in recognition of their successful bicycle business, Solé Bicycles. This weekend they travel to New York City to be honored at the 4^th Annual Kairos Global Summit at the New York Stock Exchange as leaders of one of the 50 top student ventures in the nation.

At the summit, student managers and owners of the Kairos 50 companies will have the opportunity to share their entrepreneurial stories with the media and develop partnerships between other creative individuals and startups. Out of hundreds of applicants from around the world, only three California universities will be represented: Chapman, Stanford and USC.

Standley took over operations of the business from its original founders about a year ago. Today he runs it with Mick as creative director and Petraglia as head of marketing.

Solé Bicycles are all assembled in Taiwan and shipped to a Los Angeles warehouse, from which they are distributed to customers across the continental United States. The company’s next venture is to go international and expand into Mexico, the Netherlands and Germany this spring

For more information about the award program, visit the Kairos Global Summit website.