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Marsha Gear
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(San Diego) -- After thorough deliberation, the judges in the final round of the NASDAQ-SDSU International Student Business Plan Competition chose the team from the University of Georgia as the $10,000 Grand Prize winner.
The announcement was made Saturday, March 22 during the awards luncheon culminating this three-day highly competitive event held at the Mission Valley Marriott in San Diego. The forum is hosted by the Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University, one of the "top 25 business schools for entrepreneurs," according to Success magazine.
Five teams competed in the final round after having presented their business plan along with 15 other teams in the semi-finals. Undergraduate and graduate students traveled from as far away as Ecuador, South Africa, Mexico and Russia to participate in this unique environment where students gain hands-on experience and the opportunity to meet individuals who may be able to assist them as an investor, professional service provider or management expert.
During the final phase of the competition, each team made a 20-minute presentation and was then subjected to 20 minutes of tough questioning by the judges. The entire business concept, looking at overall feasibility combined with capital gains potential, investment possibilities, and actual implementation were considered by the judges.
Georgia students Jeffrey Mills, Kimberly Haynes, Mark Patterson and Tobias Groenen methodically took the judges through their plan for a business called Bio-Pet Technologies, for which they are already in the throes of launching. Bio-Pet will develop and market innovative veterinary pharmaceuticals that provide vets and animal shelters with safe and cost-effective alternatives to conventional surgical sterilization procedures.
The choice was not easy according to the prestigious five-member judging panel.
"All five of the deals we reviewed today were better than anything I saw back in the days when I sat on the board of a venture capital company," said Richard Hartnack, vice chairman of Union Bank of California, a long-time sponsor of the event.
"Ultimately we chose the Bio-Pet plan because we agreed with the teams' assessment that there were few barriers to entry and that the market is so overwhelmingly large," said finalist judge John Moores, chairman of both the San Diego Padres and Peregrine Systems, a San Diego-based Call Center software company.
During their presentation, the students forecasted a compounded annual return of nearly 80 percent on an investor's initial equity investment in Bio-Pet. They plan to accomplish this by first launching SpaySafe, a patent pending vaccine for dogs administered in three separate doses causing a lifetime of sterility.
Joining Moores and Hartnack at the judging table were Cam Garner, president and CEO of San Diego-based Dura Pharmaceuticals; Richard Jaffe, CEO of San Diego-based Safeskin; and founder and Sr. Exec. VP of Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster Robert Leonard, who lives and offices in San Diego.
"One of the most compelling factors in the SDSU competition is the degree of mastery students must have over their projects due to the incredible expertise, due diligence and knowledge of the judges," said Bio-Pet faculty advisor Charles Hofer, a Regents Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Georgia. "San Diego is a hot bed of new venture creation with a well-established venture community and successful entrepreneurs. Consequently, questioning by the judging panel, whose members are primarily drawn from this community, is more focused, pointed and rigorous."
As Grand Prize winner, the University of Georgia earns an invitation to compete in the Moot Corp. competition hosted by the University of Texas at Austin next month. And in a surprise announcement, the 200 people attending the luncheon learned that Nasdaq will underwrite travel and accommodation expenses for the entire team to attend the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program to be held in Palm Springs in November. In addition, Niki Krutop, a partner in the San Diego office of Ernst & Young (an event sponsor), said E&Y will waive the $1,995 registration fee for each member of the Georgia team.
The judges awarded the $3,500 Second Place award to the five-member team from the South African campus of Bond University in Australia. Their company, called FungiGulp is offering a new patented technology for the treatment of hog effluent.
Hands-Free Productions Inc., presented by a two-member team from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, received the $1,500 Third Place prize. They plan to produce and sell spoken word versions of popular and niche magazines on audio CDs.
Typically, the prize money is used by the students as seed money to launch their new venture.
Indiana University and the University of Texas at Austin also competed in the final round.
The Entrepreneurial Management Center is a privately funded center within the College of Business Administration at SDSU. Its mission is dedicated to enhancing the impact, understanding and knowledge of entrepreneurship because of its significance in economic development and job creation.
In its ninth year, the competition was underwritten by The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. and Motorola New Enterprises. Nasdaq is the fastest growing stock market in the U.S. and the world's first electronic stock market. Motorola New Enterprises was established in the early '80s as an investment and operational function reporting to the Office of the CEO of Motorola. Their charter is to identify outstanding opportunities where they can work with and support entrepreneurs to build world-class companies.
"SDSU is becoming one of the world-class competitions," said Motorola's Manager of Human Technology Dave Willis. "This is so because of their involvement with the global universities, selection criteria for teams, judging criteria and the quality of their judges. We like to send some of our executives from new enterprises so that the entrepreneurial traits and characteristics of the students can rekindle their thoughts about entrepreneurship and the business planning process."
"Our goal is to support the people who are in the business of educating the next crop of entrepreneurs," said Gary Burke, vice president of The Nasdaq Stock Market. We hope our participation encourages others to understand the value of these kinds of competitions to the educational process."
Other sponsors include JBM Ventures Inc., and Orincon Technologies Inc. Event patrons are Alliance Staffing Associates; Coopers & Lybrand LLP; Genetronics Inc.; Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP; and SDG&E.
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