When Hayley So, a Kinesiology student in the Faculty of Health, competed in the Spring 2025 Problem Pitch competition, she walked away with $7,500 in R&D funding to advance her startup, ClickNShare. The platform aims to make creative equipment like cameras and devices easier and more affordable to access, helping students and creators alike share their tools and talents.
Building ClickNShare
The Problem Pitch competition, funded by Quantum Valley Investments, is now helping Hayley take the first steps toward developing ClickNShare, a platform that started as a classroom idea in BET 300 and is now evolving into a potential startup.
When Hayley took BET 300: Foundations of Venture Creation at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, she looked to her own experiences for inspiration.
“I love filming but couldn’t justify buying expensive equipment for short-term use,” she explains. “That led toClickNShare, a peer-to-peer camera and device rental platform that allows people to borrow equipment at affordable rates while giving owners a way to earn passive income from gear they aren’t using.”
For Hayley, the process of transforming a personal frustration into a scalable business idea was transformative. “My peers constantly challenged my thinking and pointed out things I hadn’t considered,” she says. “Meeting with advisors and Conrad alumni gave me insights that strengthened my business model and mentors who continue to guide me today.”
Those insights carried into the Problem Pitch competition, where Hayley focused on defining and validating the problem her startup would solve.
“The competition pushed me to really dig into the barriers people face when trying to access creative tools and to analyze what competitors and other peer-to-peer markets were doing well to succeed,” she says.
Hayley is now using the award to fund early-stage development and user research for ClickNShare as she prepares for the next stage of her entrepreneurial journey.
Laying the groundwork
Hayley’s path to entrepreneurship began with the Zero Experience program, founded by BET 300 alumni Holden Beggs and Jackson Mills, where she first explored how creative thinking and adaptability drive innovation.
“It was the first time I really got to test ideas in a low-stakes, collaborative environment,” she says. “It helped me see how entrepreneurship is more about experimentation than having all the answers.”
That curiosity later led her to the Entrepreneurship for Commercialization of Health Opportunities (ECHO) Program at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, where she completed a six-month entrepreneurship program focused on innovation in the cardiovascular field. As a cardiovascular research student, the experience showed her how she could bring together her interests in health research and entrepreneurship to create meaningful impact beyond the lab.
Looking ahead
With support from the Problem Pitch award, Hayley is focused on growingClickNShare and continuing to apply the entrepreneurial mindset she’s developed through her studies.
She credits BET 300 and Professor Wayne Chang for providing the guidance and motivation that allowed her to turn the ideas and skills she built through Zero Experience and the ECHO Program into a tangible startup.
Without the feedback and structure from BET 300, ClickNShare wouldn’t have progressed from a classroom concept into something I could pitch and develop. All these experiences combined together have shown me how I can bring my passions for health, research, and entrepreneurship into real-world impact.
