A broken skateboard started it all.

Then in high school in Cincinnati, Jonah Mikesell’s electric skateboard busted, only he didn’t want to throw the electric battery pack out. He wanted to see if he could use it somehow.

Using the individual battery cells, he built a portable charger in an Altoids tin, posted it to Facebook Marketplace and sold it within 30 minutes. Next thing you know, he was selling his repurposed battery portable chargers on his Etsy store.

“When I got here at Ohio State, I was motivated to teach myself circuit design,” says Jonah, an electrical engineering major. “That was specifically so I could manufacture my products faster. I started in my senior year of high school but really picked up the pace here.”

His entrepreneurial mindset, buoyed by his electrical engineering skills, picked up big time at Ohio State. In one of his engineering classes — Empowering the Entrepreneurial Electrical and Computer Engineer — he led his team to replicate his Etsy store’s business model, the idea being to take decommissioned electric vehicle batteries and repurpose them for portable chargers, power stations, and residential energy storage.

The idea and Shark Tank-style pitch at the end of the semester earned him first place in the class and motivated him to pitch during the Best of Student Startups (BOSS) competition. Again, he won, claiming $20,000 toward his venture and a golden ticket to compete in the President’s Buckeye Accelerator Finale to pitch his business again, now named Phoenix Battery Co.

At the Buckeye Accelerator, Mikesell and Phoenix Battery Co. got another boost when it was one of the ventures picked for the fourth cohort of the program, gaining $50,000 in funding in the process.

“I never really associated myself with having a legit business until I came to Ohio State,” says Jonah, who will continue to build Phoenix Battery Co. while working his new job at Raglan Motors in North Carolina upon graduation. “I just thought I had a side gig, but I found this path here. That class was where Phoenix Battery was born, and all I’ve gotten was encouragement since then.”

Jonah on his Ohio State experience: “My journey at Ohio State has been taking advantage of all the opportunities available to me and it’s got me where I am now. As a freshman, I immediately joined the underwater robotics team. I learned a lot there and it motivated me to learn circuit design. That helped me become a teacher’s assistant because I had taught myself circuit design. Then I joined the electronics club, which offers project funding for members. I used that funding to pay for circuit boards I had designed. My junior year I joined a brand new engineering design team called the Battery Workforce Challenge and became the electrical hardware lead.”

His advice to students: “Extracurriculars are going to give you that step ahead when you go for a job. My full-time job search was so successful because I put my priorities into extracurriculars. So do something extra, join a club, join a team, be passionate about an idea. There’s a ton of stuff you can do here at Ohio State. Take advantage of it. That’s the biggest reason I chose a big university. You can find your niche anywhere you go.”