Tiki Ice, a winner of the 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Business Plan Competition, recently added a second cart.  Look for them at locations throughout the Las Vegas Valley, along with their original location is at Town Square.

“Having a strong business plan for the Governor’s Cup meant that I had to obtain real world information, which was 100 percent applied in action when we started the business.”

Jean Bridges, CFO
TIKI ICE, Inc.

For Jean Bridges, entering NCET’s 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup wasn’t just about winning a competition. It was about creating the foundation for a business concept that could immediately and successful be launched in today’s business climate.

“The process of actually having a suitable business plan for the competition is how you learn the most,” explains Bridges. “If you are doing it right, creating the business plan is a huge education on what you’ll need to have, know and obtain to launch your business. I’ve heard people say that writing a business plan is unnecessary or does no good. Anyone who says that can’t have been through the process I went through! Just writing the plan was hugely educational.”

According to Bridges, having a strong business plan meant that she had to obtain real world information, which she was able to put into real use when she launched her business, TIKI ICE, Inc., just one month after taking high honors at the competition. TIKI ICE makes frozen fruit ices that are gluten-free, dairy-free and free from artificial colors, flavors or ingredients. Products are made of organic flavor bases, real fruit and real cane sugar. The company’s first sales location is at Town Square Las Vegas.

Bridges says meeting people in the business of building new companies, like angel investors, was a great perk of the Governor’s Cup competition. She credits her instructors and teammates for the team’s success.

“My biggest driver on the business plan – from inception to the point of competing in the Governor’s Cup – was my professor, Dr. Steven Phelan. He heads the New Venture concentration of the MBA program at UNLV. He was a strong source of encouragement, and of course learning, throughout the process. I think he noticed that I was very serious about my business and my business plan, and so he met with me repeatedly about competing in the Governor’s Cup competition. I had collaborators on the plan – three students in my UNLV New Venture Creation class – Spencer Fairbairn, Hector Ibarra and Beck Roghaar. We all learned so much in the process of writing the plan about how to make my type of business ‘go’.”

James Blood, MJ’s Pizza

MJ’s Pizzeria opened its doors for business just one year after taking first place honors in NCET’s 2009 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup. President James Blood says if it wasn’t for what he learned during the competition, his business wouldn’t be up and running today.

“When I first heard about the Governor’s Cup in 2007, it sounded like a great way to get a business plan noticed by local experts, and a great way to get details ironed out and suggestions made,” explains Blood. “We got a lot of important feedback. The judges really took the time to read the plans and try to understand them. Our original plan featured a full-house restaurant and bar concept with entertainment, nightly specials, wait-staff, etc.  The judges were concerned that it would be too much of a burden capital-wise for a start-up to handle, and several of our advisors, namely C4Cube, independently came to that conclusion as well.”

According to Blood, the feedback from both the Governor’s Cup judges and advisors from C4Cube, urged the team to scale back to a simple take-out and delivery concept similar to Domino’s, but with a specialty menu still in place. Today, MJ’s Pizzeria offers a high-quality yet convenient pizza with more than 30 toppings, gluten-free crusts and vegetarian meats and cheeses. 

“We were able to open for less than 1/5th of the capital in our original plan,” says Blood. “One major reason restaurants fail in the first six months is people get excited, take out huge loans, and buy a lot of fancy and unnecessary brand-new equipment that they think they need, and then are unable to pay back the massive loan. We hope to avoid that by scaling back and getting our product out in the market first before going for the full-house concept.”

Blood also garnered valuable, real-world feedback on his business concept through Governor’s Cup presentations.

“It’s easy to convince yourself that it will work, but after that you have to be able to convince others,” notes Blood. “I think this was the first time a restaurant was presented in the competition, and restaurants operate very differently on paper from technology, service and even retail companies, and you have to be able to explain those differences to an audience that is probably not familiar with the way restaurants operate.”

Blood also says he learned how to think through all aspects of business operation during the Governor’s Cup, a practice he is sure will serve him well down the road.

“Know your service and know your product,” Blood advises. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking, ‘I designed this from the ground up, I know everything about it.’ On that same note, don’t be afraid to take other people’s advice. The biggest piece of advice I got was the idea to scale back at first, and if I hadn’t done that, I’m sure I would not be operational today.” 

More photos here

GRADUATE WINNERS

Graduate 1^st Place

InnerVision, LLC – University of Arkansas

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Carol Reeves

Team members: Anoop Prasanna, Annelie Reckling, Elizabeth Slape, Jeff Veltkamp, Bryon Western

InnerVision’s Smart Turbine Blade^TM enables power generation facilities to radically change their maintenance programs, saving them millions of dollars each year on interval-based maintenance.  Our Smart Turbine Blade^TM captures real-time diagnostic information from the inside of the turbine and transmits data wirelessly to the outside 

Graduate 2^nd PlaceBiologics MD – University of Arkansas

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Carol Reeves

Team members: Dr. Robyn Goforth, Paul Mlakar, Dr. Misty Stephens, Michael Thomas BiologicsMD is a medication development company started by four University of Arkansas graduate students. The team has relevant experience in drug development, management, marketing, grant writing and regulatory processes. We are commercializing a new patent-pending pre-clinical osteoporosis medication called OsteoFlor. Competitive osteoporosis product classes are limited by side effects and low efficacy at growing new bone. OsteoFlor will increase bone mineral density over twice as much as the leading medication in a single annual dose. Importantly, it has had no observed side effects in preclinical studies. Osteoporosis drug sales reached $2 billion in the U.S. and $9 billion globally in 2008. Based upon industry comparables, we expect OsteoFlor will be valued at $160 after a successful Phase I clinical trial. Given the current pharmaceutical R&D pipeline gap, pending patent expirations, and product advantages, OsteoFlor represents a promising opportunity for acquisition by a large pharmaceutical company.

UNDERGRADUATE WINNERS

Undergraduate 1^st Place

Arkansas Auto-Fluff – University of Arkansas

Faculty Advisor: Mark Zweig

Team members: Ashley Giles, Mason Miller, Greg Savage, Alex Spinks

An Arkansas company that specializes in the recycling of end of life plastics from the waste stream of the automobile industry. The company is able to combine two current problems into one profitable solution.

Undergraduate 2^nd Place

UniPHI – University of Oklahoma, Norman

Faculty Advisor: Lowell Busenitz Team members: Blake Trippet, Hamid Pezeshkian, Lucas Rice, Daniel Parrot

Different standards and software protocols prevent the sharing of healthcare information between providers throughout the United States. UniPHI – the Uniform Platform for Healthcare Information – has developed a technology that will revolutionize the communication of healthcare by standardizing and networking differently formatted medical data stored in databases across the nation.

• First place in the graduate division and the $20,000 prize went to Glyzen Technologies from UNR for their plan to develop a process to remove biodiesel waste.
• UNR’s Outbox Records, LLC took first place in the undergraduate division and the $20,000 prize for their plan to promote a music-recording label through digital music and social networking.
• Second place in the graduate division and the $10,000 prize went to UNR’s Biometric Recognition, Inc. for their plan for a product involving hand-based recognition and authentication system.
• UNR’s Innovative Protection Systems took second place in the undergraduate division and the $10,000 prize for their plan to create advanced handheld protection devices.
• Third place in the graduate division and the $5,000 prize went to UNLV’s TIKI ICE for a low calorie, Italian Ice product.
• UNR’s Nevada Paper Fuels took third place in the undergraduate division and the $5,000 prize for their plan to develop an industrial process which converts waste paper into cellulosic ethanol.

For the fourth year, NCET presented the Lt. Governor’s Award, sponsored by NV energy, to the business plans that best employed clean, renewable or efficient energy technologies and service. NOVAE Nanotechnology from UNR won the Lt. Governor’s award and $5,000 for their plan to provide high quality single-walled carbon nanotubes with reduced production costs.

You can find a complete list of winners with team information including team members, faculty advisor and business plan descriptions here

April 21 – Atlantis Hotel, Reno

9:30 am – 5:30 pm – FREE and Open to the Public

You’re invited to watch Nevada’s best and brightest college and university students present their business plans on Wednesday, April 21 at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in the "Treasures" meeting rooms on the second floor in the new conference center. The presentations are free and open to the public.

Presentation Schedule

Governor’s Cup – Undergraduate / Treasures B

10:00 Green Ethos
11:00 Outbox Records, LLC
1:00 Innovative Protection Systems
2:00 Nevada Paper Fuels
3:00 Phoenix Recycling Solutions
4:00 Bioethanol Today

Governor’s Cup – Graduate / Treasures C

10:00 Glyzen Technologies
11:00 Optimal Irrigation System
1:00 Sludge2Power
2:00 Biometric Recognition, Inc.
3:00 TIKI ICE
4:00 AACSS, Inc.

Lt. Governor’s Award / Treasure D

9:30 Sludge2Power
10:30 Nevada Paper Fuels
11:30 Bioethanol Today
1:30 Green Ethos
2:30 Postcom Energy
3:30 SolAir
4:30 NOVAE Nanotechnology

Eleven teams from UNR will present business plans to judges Wednesday at the Atlantis Casino, with the chance of walking away with a first-place award of $20,000. They will compete against teams from three other Nevada universities and colleges for nearly $200,000 in total prize money. The majority of this year’s entries are focused on green energy.

The Governor’s Cup, co-sponsored by Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NCET) and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, encourages entrepreneurship and innovation in Nevada, organizers said. The Cup is divided into undergraduate, graduate and renewable-energy competitions, with first- and second-place teams from each moving on to a tri-state cup between Nevada, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Dave Archer, CEO of NCET, said the competition isn’t always based on green technologies, but changes in the market and the shifting of talent between university departments has brought green energy to the forefront.

“Green and clean energy lends itself to the competition well because it’s a burgeoning field right now,” Archer said. “This year there is a group of strong individuals in the engineering program. In 2008 it was a group from the journalism program.”

Of the six finalists from UNR, five modeled their business plans around renewable energy, Archer said. He said UNR and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas dominated the state competition in years past and continue to do so this year.

Emily Somerville, NCET’s senior marketing and events manager, said the majority of this year’s finalists are from UNR.  UNR finalists make up five of the six undergraduate teams, three of the six graduate teams, and five of the seven renewable energy finalists, she said.  The renewable energy competition is also known as the Lieutenant Governor’s cup.

Read entire article here

But the 12 finalists in this year’s Governor’s Cup competition can sure put together a mean business plan.

A quick look at the final teams in the 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition reveals a geek squad that would put Best Buy’s bunch to shame.

Forget scanning your computer for malware. Most of these teams are tackling heavier stuff like nanotechnology, recycled silicon and generating renewable energy from an array of waste materials.

Dave Archer, chief executive officer of Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, described this year’s crop of finalists as one of the most promising he’s seen in six years of competition.

"I’ve spent most of my life in the corporate world, and I’ve seen a lot of business plans," Archer said. "The creativity and professionalism I’ve seen in the finalists’ business plans this year is as good or even better than what I saw in the corporate world. It’s even more amazing when you think that these finalists are all graduate or undergraduate students."

Read entire article here