Competition transforms students into entrepreneurs

BOULDER – What do software-maker Roving Planet, alternative fuel systems company Big Clean Trucks and the organic food-seller Spring Foods have in common? Each is a valuable startup creating jobs and generating profit on the Front Range, and each began as a school project.

Twice a year, students at the graduate and undergraduate levels at the University of Colorado’s Deming Center for Entrepreneurship compete in business plan competitions. They present comprehensive and viable plans to investors and local business professionals. Often, teams take their projects to the next level and try their hand at starting a company.

Business plan competitions take place in universities across the country, but CU students have rare access to the resources of one of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial environments around. And recognizing the importance of young blood in maintaining this environment, local professionals are only too eager to help.

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Jessica Pearse, a recent CU graduate, won fourth place in this spring’s competition with her group’s plan for “Emergency Vehicle Alert System,” a company that proposed to develop a highly visible light bar to alert drivers of approaching emergency vehicles at intersections.

Pearse said her share of the prize – the team won $750 – is nothing compared to the value of the business network she developed throughout the project, and the confidence to approach real-life investors with a well-developed plan.

“This was the most intense course I’ve ever taken in my life,” she said. “But the most useful.”
Unlike some of her competitors, Pearse has no intentions of pursuing this particular venture, but instructor Frank Moyes said execution is beside the point.

“In this course the value is not the plan, but the process you have to go through,” Moyes said. “You learn so much from having to go through this very difficult, very painful process.”

The Deming Center for Entrepreneurship is a joint program of the colleges of business and engineering. The center offers entrepreneurship as a certificate program at the undergraduate level, and as a track graduate students may opt for to focus their studies in. For undergrads, the business plan competition is the culmination of a requisite business plan preparation course, but it’s optional for MBAs.

In small groups, undergraduate students select an innovative concept for a product or service as the basis for the business plan they will shape throughout the entire 12-week semester. Sometimes concepts are self-generated. Other times, students choose to write a business plan based on an idea offered by CU’s Technology Transfer office, then work with engineers or scientists to develop the plan and prototype.

Some students – usually MBAs – are approached by local companies to devise business plans for an idea that company may have.

Moyes, who teaches the business plan course, provides each group access to a mentor from the business community, and requires every student to go out into the community and interview at least five professionals within the appropriate field. In addition, everyone must perform rigorous market research including customer surveys on target markets.

“You can’t write a business plan in a vacuum,” Moyes said. “You have to test your idea on a bunch of people.”
Every week, Moyes grills students on the finer points of their plans during twhat he calls “firing sessions” that focus on a particular element of the plan; marketing one week, operations the next, and so on. To prepare students for the competition, he often invites businesspeople into the classroom to join the interrogation.
At the end of each semester, teams present their plans before a panel of outside entrepreneurs and investors. Last semester, four teams out of 12 were selected by the panel to go on to the business plan competition held the following week. New experts are brought in, and all four teams present again before and audience of parents and peers.

Four cash prizes are awarded to winning groups in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions: $2,000 for first place, $1,250 for second place, $1,000 for third place and $750 for fourth place.

One past winner, Sara Schupp, created a company based on her idea to publish an institution-specific guide for parents of college students. Since starting at CU in 2003, University Parent magazine has spread to more than 60 campuses nationwide.

Locomotion is a company devised by a team of MBAs last fall who developed a prototype for a machine that aids rehab patients using treadmills to regain their walking skills. The team went on to enter Seagate’s business plan competition in spring, and won $60,000 in cash and services

Paul Jerde, director of the Deming Center, said CU’s competition is an important capstone to the entrepreneurial program because it teaches students about the interlocking dependencies of all aspects of business in a real-life environment.
“If students are prepared to present their plans at a level of quality that can stand up to the toughest audience, they will have the skill and know-how to do it in front of anyone,” Jerde said.

In its March 2006 issue, Fortune Small Business magazine named CU-Boulder as one of the nation’s 10 top colleges for entrepreneurs. Leeds School of Business was ranked 17th in the country in U.S. News and World Report’s 2007 America’s Best Graduate Schools Business Specialties in Entrepreneurship.