FSB students named to CincyInno's Under 25 list
Pair of students among six honored: two more on watch list
FSB students named to CincyInno's Under 25 list
A pair of Farmer School of Business Finance and Entrepreneurship students are among six people to be named 2025 CincyInno Under 25 award winners.
The program aims to honor young founders, age 25 and under, who CincyInno believes are ones to watch. Nominations are sourced from readers and ecosystem leaders with the winners selected by Cincinnati Business Courier staff.
One honoree is sophomore Andy Robbins, who is co-founder of Sparkli, co-founder of the “Dollar In the Dorm” podcast, and co-founder of Personal Network CRM. His Personal Network co-founder and Sparkli partner, junior Zach Carlo, is the other Miami University honoree.
“Getting involved as much as I could, as fast as I could, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done at Miami and one of the things I’ll never regret,” Carlo told CincyInno. “I want to continue bring the community together in every way possible. That's been the theme so far.”
Robbins and Carlo met through the Side Hustle Club at Miami, of which Carlo is president. Both men are involved in RedHawk Ventures, a student-led venture capital fund at Miami.
"One of the things that I really admired about him was his ability and his drive to do things," Carlo said. "He's very marketing and sales focused, and I wanted to learn how to do that. I wanted to learn what it was like to reach out to people to tell a story and how to tell it the right way."
"I got lunch with him because I thought he was doing a lot of cool stuff, especially starting the Side Hustle Club," Robbins said. 'We started working together on some tiny projects, just random stuff for the club. And then one day I just brought up, "Do you want to help work on Sparkli?' and he was excited for the opportunity."
Their newest project is a customer relationship management tool that's designed to help people maintain connections with their personal network.
"I was doing work, but I was forgetting about the people that were helping me, and I was losing relationships. So I made this mini CRM for myself that sent me like a message every day of whose birthday it was and who to reach out to, because it doesn't take much time, but your mind can't process a few hundred people at one time," Robbins said.
"I feel like it's so important to keep those relationships going past college, past whatever work things you have, and to be able to get to know somebody, reach out to them every week, month, year, whatever that might be for you," Carlo said. "Think of all the people that you met in your entire life, and those people you wish you would have talked to. Imagine where you would be today if you did talk to them. And so we're building something to help people keep track of that and help people have those better relationships.
Carlo and Robbins said they were honored to be named to CincyInno's list.
“It’s an honor to be recognized with other friends and innovators in Cincinnati. Being part of the Inno Under 25 group is a reflection of the mentors within Miami and beyond who’ve helped support me,” Carlo said. “I’m super excited to keep moving forward building and growing.”
"It’s really an honor to be part of this group. I’ve just been trying to build things that help people, so getting recognized for that means a lot,” Robbins said. “It definitely makes me want to keep pushing to make a bigger impact."
"I think that this award really stems from learning from other people and continuing to get involved in the ecosystem, in the community. I've had a lot of people that have helped me along my way and along the journey that I'm still taking to this day to build a company and learn and build up the community around me," Carlo said. "I really attribute that to the mentors and the people at Miami, the people within the Farmer School and the Entrepreneurship department."
"It means a lot to me because my family members are in a lot of different industrie. My dad and grandpa are lawyers, my uncles are doctors. And I'm going the different path of being a business entrepreneurship student," Robbins said. "Getting this was an honor because I feel like I'm finally getting close to being up next to those guys, and that means a lot for me, because I look up to my family a lot."
Two others, one an FSB student, the other a Miami University alumna, were mentioned on CincyInno's watchlist:
- Julia Johnson, marketing lead at Soundtrace
- Michael Layton, the founding chief financial officer and go-to-market lead at Mod AI
