By: Deborah Johnson Wood
What do an online T-shirt design business, daycare/tutoring endeavor, and an interior design web site for dorm rooms have in common? They all were top three finishers in the first-ever GVSU Center for Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition, the only competition like it in West Michigan.
The student creators of DormTshirts.com, Helping Hands Learning Center and Digital Wingman garnered $5,000, $3,500 and $2,000, respectively—investment funds for advancing the businesses.
“The big issue for us is making sure our students are prepared with business plans and stand ready to compete,” says Tom Schwarz, director of the center for entrepreneurship. “We evaluated all the competitions around the country and took what we thought would work for our students.”
Of the sixteen business plans submitted, ten made it to the panel of judges consisting of business leaders from five area businesses. The judges nominated the top seven plans and those entrepreneurial hopefuls competed in an oral presentation.
The winners, selected on the basis of the written plan, oral presentation, and the viability of the plan for investment, received their awards at an event on April 3 at GVSU’s Loosemore Auditorium.
“Our students came to us and wanted to start their own businesses, so we created an entrepreneurship minor three years ago to help them with their passion to start their businesses,” Schwarz says. “Our students developed to the point where they were ready to present a plan and to compete.
“The spirit of it is to bring together all the entrepreneurial activity in the community,” he adds. “So much of entrepreneurial success is networking, and this competition brings people together to network.”
Source: tom Schwarz, Center of Entrepreneurship, Seidman College of Business, Grand Valley State University
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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