The West Virginia University College of Business & Economics Entrepreneurship Center wrapped up its annual Statewide Student Business Plan Competition in April with much success. Two winners were named, Derrick McKee of Navway Records, LLC and Will and Margie Starcher of Arachnovation™, LLC.
In previous years there has only been one winner, but recently it was decided to split the contestants into two categories, “high tech” and “lifestyle”. The “high tech” sector included such projects as a hand held interactive field guide, a camera based automotive security system, and an innovative easel that can turn a canvas in hundreds of positions. The ‘lifesyle’ category featured a wide variety of businesses including a doggie day spa, a personalized pottery company, and an independent record label.
The competition places a premium on the real-life functions of a small business. The plans are extremely thorough in details concerned with finance, marketing, and target customers. The goal is to evaluate and perfect the plans so they can be fully-functional businesses operating in West Virginia. A requirement of the competition is that winners start their businesses in the state. This is both an incentive for students who wish for a head start as entrepreneurs and a positive economic step for West Virginia by localizing potentially successful businesses within the state.
The competition is an evolving process that changes and advances every year. All the participants in the contest receive invaluable education and experience in the process of planning and starting their own business, as well as experience in public speaking and seeking investors and funding. Different business professionals from all across the state provide seminars for the students on different aspects of business ranging from financing to intellectual property.
The competition is organized into three rounds that narrowed the field of contestants down to the final ten that competed for the grand prizes. In the first round contestants submitted a three to five page summary of their business idea. This submission was graded by local business professionals who used an objective
scoring rubric to decide which plans would advance to the next round. All the contestants at this stage were given detailed notes on their business idea summaries so that even those who did not advance gained experience and insight into the business plan writing process.
For the second round groups chosen from the first round attended a business conference where their idea was presented in a two-minute “elevator pitch” format. Projects were once again scored with an objective rubric, with all contestants again receiving important feedback on their plans. After this round the top ten competitors, five from each category, were selected.
For the third and final round, competitors were matched up with coaches to help them prepare their final business plans and presentations for the final competition. The business plans were sent out to the final round judges about two weeks before the presentations so that the judges could read and familiarize themselves with the contestants and their businesses. Finally, each business gave a twenty minute presentation about their business to the judges, followed by a twenty minute question and answer session where the judges, all business professionals from various fields, grilled the finalists on every aspect of their business plan.
At this juncture the contestants were selling their ideas as real-world products, as winning the competition guaranteed the founding of the business. Much was at stake for these contestants because the winner in each category received $10,000 in start-up funds. In addition to the startup capital, contestants were given a six month tenancy with the WVU Business Incubator, printing services from Signs Plus, accounting services from Dixon Hughes, and legal services from Spilman, Thomas, and Battle.
The winner in the ‘lifestyle’ category was Derrick McKee with his independent record label Navway Records. Derrick has released one album of his own music under this label and intends to sign another artist early next year.
Immediately after winning the competition he made good use of his tenancy with the WVU Business Incubator in enlisting the services of both the accountant to help prepare financial statements so that he could approach banks for additional funding to run his company and the Incubator’s graphic design department to design his logo and website.
The winners in the ‘high tech’ category were Will and Margie Starcher, a brother-sister team from Marshall University and WVU Parkersburg. Their company, Arachnovation™ invented and will manufacture their first product, the Spider Easel ™. The Spider Easel ™ is an easel for artists that can turn the canvas in a myriad of different positions, enabling the artist to have the canvas move towards them, rather than the artist moving for the canvas. They are looking to the WVU Business Incubator’s corporate services team to help guide them as they move forward marketing their Spider Easel ™.
Past winners have included Andrew White of White Guitars, who designs and manufactures his own guitars, and Katherine Harrell who designs a line of purses called K. Lianna for Little Earth ™. Both have seen major success in the first few years of their business and credit that success to being a part of the Business Plan Competition. Katherine Harrell has said of the competition, “The competition workshops taught me so much about business and I made valuable contacts that I still rely on as advisors today. It really did allow me to turn my dream into a reality as well as a full time career.”
This is the first year that the WVU Business Incubator has offered Incubator tenancy to the winners of the Business Plan Competition, but it issomething that General Manager Dusty Gwinn intends on doing every year. “We’re thrilled to be able to support Arachnaovation and Navway Records. We also consider it a privilege to support the WVU Entrepreneurship Center and believe the competition will continue to be an invaluable tool in our economic development efforts. We can hardly wait for next year’s competition to launch,” said Dusty.
The competition will begin for a whole new set of entrepreneurs in September 2007. Interested students can contact the center’s director Mindy Walls (Mindy. Walls@mail.wvu.edu) for more information about the competition.
Written by Andrew Chewning
Posted by Matt Livengood on September 21, 2007 at 12:28 pm in the following categories: Arachnovation, Navway Records
