Registration deadline approaching for Business Plan Competition

Winning business venture will earn $10,000

By: Liza Atamy

Posted: 4/24/08

The sixth-annual Silicon Valley Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship, is offering a first-place award of $10,000 to the best SJSU participant for the creation of a new business venture.

"We hope that the incentive of winning $10,000 will motivate entrepreneurial students with business ideas to write business plans," said business professor Anuradha Basu, director of the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship. "We also want to build a track record of fostering successful business startups, which would enhance our reputation."

The goal of the competition is to provide an impetus for entrepreneurship at SJSU and to recognize the writing of excellent business plans, according to the College of Business Web site.

Basu said she has been director of the competition since 2006.

"The competition is primarily funded by Wanda Ginner, an SJSU alumna," Basu said. "We have 36 applicants so far."

Basu said the judges look for business ideas that help to fill a compelling need in the market that potential customers would be willing to pay for and that are feasible commercial propositions.

Cortland Klein, a senior business management major, said he won first place for his business plan, Ripoki.com, in the Executive Summary award in the Fall 2006 competition.

"(Ripoki.com) is a time-management service able to automatically reschedule meetings as needed, much like a real life administrative assistant," said Klein, 21. "My resubmission of Ripoki.com in the Fall 2007 competition had significant updates to the site's model over the year."

Klein also said he won second place in Best Exhibit award at the 2007 SJSU Neat Ideas Fair for Ripoki.com, which earned his team $500.

"In the Neat Ideas Fair, we do not have a business plan but merely a neat idea and some basic business models on how we might take it," he said. "The Business Plan Competition is where the business plans are actually developed."

Klein said he is participating in the upcoming competition with two group projects.

SJSU business marketing alumnus Andrew Noll said he participated in last year's competition with colleague Vincent Guerrieri with their startup company, Gold Star Biodiesels, which focuses on second-generation biofuels.

"Our idea was derived when we had an entrepreneur … come speak to us in our business class with Professor Chuck Fishel," said Noll, 26. "Vincent and I met with Fishel … and created a relationship with them. A few weeks later, we were working on multiple opportunities with a management team we became a part of."

Noll said the competition taught him how to properly seek out capital, talent and consulting, and to spread the word of an upcoming company to "important" people.

"After submitting business plans to companies, I learned that investment bankers and other financial institutions do not want to see a 20-plus page report of my company and ideas," he said. "They would rather see one to three pages of information and facts on the idea."

Faisal Gowani, a senior management and marketing major, said he is also participating in this year's competition and that he will be entering two different business plans.

"The first is in relation to my own business; I own a few convenient stores," Gowani said. "With my business idea, I aim to give buying power to small-business owners."

Gowani said he attended the competition last year as the incoming president of the Entrepreneurial Society.

"I had a chance to attend the session where the judges asked the finalists questions, and I really liked the project that won," he said. "The competition helps me prepare for questions venture capitalists - that I hope to contact after I graduate - will have in regard to my business idea."

The Business Plan Competition is open to all SJSU students, alumni, staff and faculty, said Basu, director for the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship.

The online registration deadline is Saturday, April 26, and the submission deadline for the completed business plan is May 12, according to the center's Web site.