Credit: Courtesy, University of Utah
University of Utah students Brayden Iwasaki (left) and Garred Lentz (right) came up with the idea for Sakpants, a cross between “Thai fisherman pants” and children’s footie pajamas, in 2013. They developed an initial prototype and received a $3,000 seed grant from a U program affiliated with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. The students used the seed money to refine their product and then raised nearly $25,000 from 476 supporters on Kickstarter.com to continue moving their idea to production.