By Jason M. Sheldon.
After meeting their freshman year on the UConn Men’s Tennis team in 2007, Jesse Silkoff and Andrew Marcus are now business partners, running MyTennisLessons and FitnessTrainer.com out of Austin, Texas. Their online companies help match clients searching for a tennis coach or personal trainer in their local area. Silkoff and Marcus both earned degrees in applied and resource economics from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Their path to becoming business owners began before leaving UConn in 2011.
During their senior year, Silkoff and Marcus entered a business plan competition held by the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI) in the School of Business. The competition was university-wide, open to all students regardless of major or academic level. Seventy-six teams entered the competition with their plans being judged by a panel that included several business executives. Silkoff and Marcus won the top prize of $10,000 for their promising strategy for their proposal entitled Tennis Professionals.
