After more than four months the CSUF Business Plan Competition has come to an end! The competition this year was fierce; it was perhaps the best all-around group of competitors that we have ever had.
The finalists were:
- Piano with Jonny
- Don’tchu Dare
- Life Skills Products
- WECADEMi
- Parcel Sift
These finalists will receive a part of the more than $20,000 in scholarships and in-kind awards.
Fifth Place team gets:
- Cash of $250 + Legal Zoom Standard LLC package
Fourth Place team gets:
- Cash of $500 + Legal Zoom Standard LLC package
Third place team gets:
- Cash $750 plus + over $ 2,600 in-kind services
Second place team gets:
- Cash prize $1,000.00 plus + over $4,000 in-kind services
First Place team gets:
- Cash prize $2,500.00 plus + over $5,300 in-kind services
To read more on the finalists please go to this post that describes each of them.
In particular, much thanks was given to the cash sponsors of this competition, including:
- The Dan Black Family Foundation
- Peter Jechart
- Vijay Raman
We also had a number of in-kind service sponsors including:
The presentations came next with each lasting fifteen minutes including Q&A. These are nerve racking experiences for the student-entrepreneurs because not only are they presenting for scholarships, in-kind services, and in front of more than 100 people but also because of our powerhouse judging panel.
The judges included: Michael Sawitz who is the Chief Enthusiasm Officer of FastStart.studio, Karl Freels of the Dan Black Family Foundation, Dr. Deborah Ferber who is an angel investor and teaches at Brandman University, Jim Cooper who is an advisor to early stage tech startups, Nancy Russell who is the Senior VP at Seacoast Commerce Bank, and Barry Lieberman who is the President at Beatshare and advisor to startups. It was fun watching these experienced entrepreneurs and investors question our competitors and I’m sure these questions helped the competitors learn a lot about how to improve their businesses.
The results for the competition were as follows:
5th place: Don’tchu Dare
4th place: WECADEMi
3rd place: Parcel Sift
2nd place: Life Skills Products
1st place: Piano with Jonny
We will be publishing more in-depth articles about the finalists soon but needless to say we could not be prouder of these student-entrepreneurs. They have accomplished a lot and we strongly believe that some of these concepts will become great businesses (some already are well on their way!).
These events are tremendous undertakings taking many months worth of planning. We would be remiss if we did not thank the members of the planning committee, including:
- Director John Bradley Jackson
- Professor Tom Miller
- Dr. Atul Teckchandani
- Dr. David Obstfeld
- Professor Jack Mixner
- Professor Scott Sorrell
- Professor Jeff Longshaw
- Phillip Stinis
- Charlesetta Medina
- Vanessa Ganaden
- Chad Armstrong
- Lorenzo Santos
- Rahul Thakrar
Thank you to everyone who participated in this competition and we look forward to seeing what next year’s competition has to bring!
Oh, and here are some links to the previous CSUF Business plan Competitions:
And do not forget about the Titan Fast Pitch Competition that is scheduled to take place this October!
#CSUF
For more details on CSUF Entrepreneurship: http://business.fullerton.edu/Center/Entrepreneurship/
For more details on how we help people become entrepreneurs: http://business.fullerton.edu/Center/Entrepreneurship/Incubator
For more details on how CSUF Consulting can help businesses thrive: http://business.fullerton.edu/Center/Entrepreneurship/Consulting
Attend one of our events for entrepreneurs or sign up for a free mentoring session: http://bit.ly/CSUFEntrepreneurEvents