MIE Undergrad Jason Huff Wins Minute Pitch Competition
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On October 13th, when Jason Huff of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department strolled out to give his presentation in the UMass Amherst 2026 Minute Pitch Competition, he sported a large, bright-red ketchup stain on his white shirt. The stain didn’t mean Huff was messy; rather, it represented the central idea and main object of his team’s entrepreneurial idea. Huff’s first-prize-winning presentation was pitching “Neat Nix,” a pocket-sized wipe, infused with club soda, that uses simple chemistry to lift food and liquid stains instantly off clothes with a clever, environmentally friendly, bio-engineered towelette.
As a reward for Huff’s entrepreneurial pitch, he and his team of Informatics major Ian Ryu, Management major Ezra Reed, Marketing major Carly Chambers, Computer Engineering major Ben Setow, and Animal Science major Danyan Mei received the $1,300 first prize and the Audience Choice Award in a competitive field of 30 contestants.
The Minute Pitch is a contest, hosted by the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship at UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management, in which students summarize innovative ideas in an elevator pitch while competing for first-, second-, and third-place prizes in a pool of $2,500. The competition is designed to help students think creatively, communicate confidently, and bring entrepreneurial ideas to life.
“Hello, everybody, my name is Jason Huff,” he began his pitch on October 13th, “and I’m willing to bet the very first thing you noticed about me is that I have a stain on my shirt. See, current stain removers are loaded with harmful chemicals, they rely on napkins and water to first prep the area, stalling you until the stain has already infected your favorite shirt. Now, unlike any other stain remover, Neat Nix eliminates the stain before it ever even sets in.”
Then Huff went on to summarize his product: “Neat Nix is a pocket-sized wipe infused with club soda. It uses simple chemistry to lift food and liquid off your clothes right into our bio-engineered towelettes. When we tested our prototypes on coffee, tea, and ketchup, Neat Nix proved to be 2.3 times more effective than the leading stain remover: one that sold 10 million units this past year. So, not only is Neat Nix more effective, but it is a natural, ecofriendly, safe-to-use solution. Thank you.”
Beyond his winning Minute Pitch, Huff neatly sums up Neat Nix as “the world's simplest, yet most effective, portable stain eliminator. The two biggest things my team and I hope to portray is how Neat Nix is a complete solution (doesn't require extra water or napkins, yet still fits in your pocket/purse) and a natural solution (ecofriendly ingredients, zero harmful chemicals, safe for children to use, won't damage skin or clothing).”
Neat Nix co-founder Ian Ryu contributes added context to the Minute Pitch in his LinkedIn post explaining how the idea was first inspired. “From a dinner table idea to first place at the UMass Amherst 2026 Minute Pitch Competition! On February 23, 2026, my friend Jason Huff shared an idea over dinner at Worcester Commons: a stain-removing wipe called Neat Nix. Since then, Jason, my great friends Ezra Reed, Carly Chambers, and I, with the help from our friends, have been working to bring that idea to life. Together, we tested different stains, comparing to different products to see how our wipes performed against everyday alternatives. Today, Neat Nix won both first place and the Audience Choice Award for the 2026 Minute Pitch Competition.”
All the above serves as a tidy digest of how a Minute Pitch is conceived, made into a product, and encapsulated. During the Minute Pitch contest, participants deliver only an elevator pitch with no written business plan, executive summary, slides, or props required. The goal is to capture the essence of an idea in under 60 seconds, with judges and an audience evaluating its potential impact. (October 2026)