A few things stood out to PLNU marketing student Lilyan Schindler on her first day in Professor Austin Helton’s class.
“What’s up!” He used greetings and phrases she and her peers used. He was laid back and approachable; he smiled at his students at the start of class.
“There was just a different vibe to it,” Schindler said. “He kind of looked like this super casual teacher who had a big smile on his face… I [thought], ‘Dang, this class seems like a lot of fun.’”
Schindler took two classes from Helton, but the one that left a lasting impression was the Principles of Marketing course.
In that class, she realized she was learning and interacting with real-world scenarios and companies… not just textbook hypothetical situations or dated marketing approaches. Helton presented companies she and her peers knew, even admired, like Patagonia or Oatly.
“He’s not afraid to critique the textbook,” Schindler said. “I think that is awesome about him.
“He uses real life examples. We talked about the Dollar Shave Club and how they do a great job of their marketing. He was bringing up trendy brands that we are also interested in.”
Helton credits the professor who preceded him, Mike Weiss, for creating that approach to the curriculum.
“Mike is really good about bringing local companies in as a marketing challenge game,” Helton said. “He’s been bringing real companies into the classroom for years.”
But Helton has put his own spin on the marketing challenge. Before his adjunct days, Helton earned his MBA from PLNU in 2020, and his business career took off from there. He’s primarily done consulting work — serving as a Chief Marketing Officer, and acting as founder and CEO of successful companies that have since been acquired.
All of those experiences inform his approach to teaching.
“Having been an entrepreneur, a founder and then a consultant working with dozens of startups, I have this inventory of examples or analogies that I get to bring into the classroom,” Helton explained. “It’s weird lecturing on a digital marketing campaign. I can quickly pull up a dashboard that shows how one went down in real life … I think that really brings the students to the curriculum in a way that is a bit more real than the textbook.”
Unlike the previous companies taught in the classroom marketing challenge, Helton asked students to create a marketing plan for a start-up company Helton actually does consulting work for.
“Without [the students’ marketing plan], the company won’t have one. It’s an actual need.”
“Because they’re a startup that needs a marketing plan for like their first year in business, it was just a really good opportunity to let students not just build a plan for a Chick-Fil-A or the zoo that’s been doing marketing for 50 years,” Helton explained.
“Without [the students’ marketing plan], the company won’t have one. It’s an actual need. It’s a really cool product that the students, you know, frankly, get more excited about than maybe marketing for the San Diego Zoo or something like that because it’s new; it’s exciting.”
Limber is a local prosthetic leg startup that was created in 2020. The founding team of three subject matter experts dreamed up the world’s first 3D-printed, below-knee prosthesis — a game changer in that field of medicine. They take 3D scans of the residual limb or an existing prosthesis, and Limber makes a design in a computer that is custom to each patient and prints the prosthesis.
Helton first discovered Limber in 2023 through the San Diego Angel Conference. This conference hosts an early stage investment competition each year, and in 2022, Helton was on the due diligence team, which determined whether the companies could actually create value with a sizable investment.
He said the Limber founders’ pitch stood out among all the other entrants. One of the founders actually designed and built the 3D printer in his garage to create the prosthesis.
“I was doing due diligence on the company and instantly fell in love with the product, the team, the founders, the mission,” Helton said “They were the best company of the 100 that applied. For a lot of startups, the product isn’t fully baked when you’re raising Angel money. Limber was doing testing. There was really a magic in the team that I was really attracted to.”
Limber received the investment money, and Helton stayed involved with the company. He’s now the head of partnerships at the company.
When he started teaching at PLNU in 2024, he said it was natural to bring this part of his career into the classroom.
“I did talk about the Limber project in a lot of my interviews for internships this summer,” Schindler said. “This project really helped me be able to kind of sell myself and also sell the experience I had.”
Helton invited his students to come up with the marketing plans for Limber. And Limber executives would vote on the best one. Lilyan Schindler was one of the students who rose to the challenge.
“I was blown away,” Schindler said. “This is a real, hands-on experiment that we get to kind of collaborate with.”
What started as an assignment turned into something she also felt invested in.
“This isn’t just to get an A in the class. This is actually to win and to show to the head executives of the company and Limber’s marketing team,” Schindler said. “So I was like, ‘Dang, this is getting real.”
She said her team took the class assignment and competition seriously.
“Their plan was very creative,” Helton said. “They came up with a campaign idea of Limber 360.”
In addition to the Limber marketing plan, Schindler and her team brought in a campaign plan and integrated marketing too.
“I could tell they were just thinking about how to communicate these values to the audience,” Helton said. “They really thought through the audience and thought through how to communicate it in a way that was really impressive.”
Her team won the competition. But the big win for Schindler was landing an internship this summer.
“I did talk about the Limber project in a lot of my interviews for internships this summer,” Schindler said. “This project really helped me be able to kind of sell myself and also sell the experience I had.”
What Helton says makes this classroom project successful is the team mentality.
“It takes different skill sets,” Helton said. “[Within] the teams, there’s a research oriented role; there’s a design oriented role. There’s projections and financial estimation roles. And then there’s a writing and [storytelling] role.”
Each student gets to bring those skill sets to the table and try different ones throughout the process, because the ultimate goal is to prepare them for what’s next whether that’s an internship or job.
“We’re not going to run a Super Bowl ad, you know?” Helton said. “We have to make sure the ideas are right sized, and I think that the right sizing of marketing strategy is such a skill for somebody to have early in their career.
“You have to think about your audience and where you might find them. It lets the students go one layer deeper in their strategic thinking. You have to think about, ‘How do I reach this audience?’”
