Sowinq the seeds: these business plan competition winners show they've got what it takes to make their startup ideas bloom

Entrepreneur, May, 2004 by Nichole L. Torres

START A BUSINESS. START A BUSINESS.

Start a business. As a reader of Entrepreneur, you hear that phrase often. And for the participants of the first annual 2004 SEED Business Plan Competition in Santa Barbara, California, this past February, it seemed to be the chant in the air.

SEED, short for Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, is the brainchild of David Newton, founder and president of TechKnowledge Point Corp. His Santa Barbara firm helps small businesses and startups find research and business contacts to help them grow their ventures and brings academic re search to the business community. (TechKnowledge Point also compiled Entrepreneur's 2004 college rankings, which appear on page 78.) The competition is part of an overall strategy that encourages bringing together business ideas and people who have the research, capital, connections and general know-how to get a startup off the ground.

The business plan competition attracted graduate and post-graduate students from business schools across the country to present their ideas on ventures ranging from fuel-cost-management services for trucking companies to made-to-order art prints for interior designers. From rethinking old ideas to creating a brand-new niche in a growing market, these budding entrepreneurs carne prepared to exceed expectations. The excitement was palpable, and, in many cases, the teams came with their businesses well beyond the planning stage, ready to enter the execution stage.

Of the 35 business plans submitted, eight were chosen to be presented at the semifinals in Santa Barbara in front of a tough group of judges who threw hard questions while making solid suggestions for the aspiring entrepreneurs. According to Newton, the plans were scored on elements such as the strength of the management team; a clearly identifiable business model; fully fleshed-out costs and cost structures; whether there was a large, viable market ready for the product or service; and the overall attractiveness to investors.

"We were pleased to find that, as opposed to a stack of 35 plans dealing with some kind of precision technical instrument or wireless telecom, the whole range was there," says Newton. From pharmaceuticals to medical devices to an adventure-travel Web services site and road-safety-testing equipment, the plans ran the gamut.

Taking home the top prize was ThruSkin Technologies, the team from the University of Georgia in Athens. Helmed by Michael Clark, 33, Solomon T. Garner Jr., 26, Toby Mercer, 28, and Mark Moore, 34, and their business plan is to create and market nutraceutical products, which include supplements from natural sources with proven health benefits.

Their first product in development is a glucosamine topical treatment to relieve the causes and symptoms of osteoarthritis. Garner, a student at the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, had been researching the product for his studies, and he linked up with Clark, Mercer and Moore in the business school to find a way to commercialize what he'd developed in the lab.

The fact that these aspiring entrepreneurs have combined their backgrounds in medicine, pharmacology, sales and business development certainly added strength to their business plan. But what really earned ThruSkin Technologies the first-place prize of $10,000 in seed money, ah office computer system, and an automatic berth in the University of San Francisco School of Business and Management's business plan competition was their already detailed knowledge of the industry they planned to enter. "One of the strong advantages is that the winners have already immersed [themselves] in the business in which they're going to be involved," says Kenneth Shein, managing partner at Prime Energy Partners Ltd. in El Segundo, California, anda judge in the finals. "That makes a big difference in the quality. We fmd that those [competitors] that have actually developed their business plans out of their own experiences within the industries and sectors they're involved in tend to be better."

Though elated after their win, the team from ThruSkin Technologies is wasting no time in making their plan a reality. They intend to enter a few more business plan competitions to raise their profile while building the $500,000 in capital they need to launch the company. "Our experience presenting [our idea] was great. We met some VCs and others with great business history," says Mercer. "We're furthering the business part every day. I think we're all pretty motivated to see where it goes."

Yes, there was a winner with a stellar business plan--but there were seven other semifinalists who also have the potential to build their plans into successful businesses. Look for these entrepreneurs to make some serious waves in the near future.

* INPIRAE HEALTHCARE, REPRESENTING THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN GAINESVILLE, took home the second-place prize of $5,000 in seed money. Inspirae, which in Latin means "to breathe life into," focuses on overhauling medical devices--safely making items that are classified as single-use devices reusable.