http://upandrunning.entrepreneur.com/2010/04/26/a-good-list-of-business-plan-competitions/

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2010/07/26/daily23.html?ana=e_du_pub

The Greatest Invention Yet

Lief Larson
Lief has founded and grown eight companies, including his latest Workface, Inc. His most recent prior startup, Consumable Media LLC, was successfully funded in 2006 and is expected to surpass $70 million in sales by 2009. In 2004, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Self-Service industry association and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. Lief was named #8 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Top 10 American Entrepreneurs Under 30” list and was a back-to-back semi-finalist for the Minnesota Cup in 2005 & 2006.  Besides acting as a media consultant to numerous companies, including IBM, Hilton, Target, and Daimler Chrysler, he has been a career entrepreneur, technologist and futurist.  Lief has an undergrad degree in Business Administration and Media Communications from the University of Wisconsin and the School of Mass Communications at the University of Minnesota.

Mark Bassinger
Mark is a business leader and change agent who can quickly survey any company or industry for challenges and opportunities and customize a detailed technology plan mapped to the company’s needs.  He has held numerous senior IT and operations positions in the casino, travel and hospitality industry.  Mark has an MBA from the Carlson School of Management and a bachelors in music composition from the Berklee College of Music in NYC.\

Tim Kraskey
Tim is the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development of Calabrio, Inc. Tim oversees product management, marketing communications and business development. Tim started his
career as a top account manager for ADC. Following ADC, Tim joined Canadian based Newbridge Networks as one of the company’s first sales personnel. He was an Account Manager for the New York City Metro Region and later Director of International Sales – selling to both service providers and enterprise networks.  Tim grew sales as Director of ATM Marketing at General DataComm from $0 to a $45M run rate in 18 months before leaving and starting his own company. Tim co-founded Sahara Networks, which developed an open architecture for building and managing ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) networks. Sahara was acquired by Cascade, then Ascend and later Lucent. Most recently, Tim was a Managing Partner at YankeeTek Ventures along with Howard Anderson, founder of The Yankee Group.  YankeeTek is a Venture Capital fund for early-stage technology.  Tim and Howard Anderson co-authored the fi rst sales and sales management class at MIT Sloan. Tim has brought his class to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He is also an active participant and on the advisory board of the Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship.  Tim has a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota.

Ed Cannon
Ed Cannon co-founded Cannon Technologies, Inc. in 1987 with his brother Joel.  Cannon Technologies started out as a software developer/systems integrator for electric utilities in the areas of demand response and automatic meter reading using power line carrier.  In later years they began designing and manufacturing wireless hardware and also moved into substation automation to complement their other areas of expertise.  Today they are the pre-eminent supplier of demand response in North America, with over 150 employees and $100 million in sales.  In 2006, Cannon was sold to Cooper Industries, and Ed retired from Cooper in the summer of 2008.  Ed is a native of Sioux Falls, SD and holds a BSEE from SDSU.  After graduation, he joined Westinghouse and worked in the areas of power generation, transmission and electric distribution and was the manager of distribution automation when he left to lead Cannon Technologies.   In 2007, Ed was honored with the distinguished engineer award by SDSU.  Ed serves on various boards and does some consulting and mentoring for new companies. Ed and his wife Judy have four children and are active in numerous charitable organizations.

Clark Becker
Clark is the CEO of Ridge Run, LLC, an Embedded software product and services company specializing in Linux based consumer products and industrial product software engineering. Ridge Run has recently signed a strategic partnership with Texas Instruments for their open source Linux strategy for their newest generation of OMAP 35x silicon and Streaming media open source Gstreamer framework collaboration for all current Texas Instruments catalog silicon products in DaVinci line. Previous to Ridge Run, Becker was a Senior Vice President and the Chief Technology Officer for Best Buy Co., Inc. where he was responsible for the major systems initiatives which changed the competitive nature of the company (Over $100 million invested). He managed consumer technology labs testing yet-to-be-released products before they went to market. He also oversaw market planning for the technology change in consumer electronics.  Clark holds BS/MIS/MBA degrees from the Carlson School of Management.

Here is Net Impact’s description of the competition:

The competition challenges students to invent sustainable products or develop sustainable business solutions and present them to a panel of Walmart executives, suppliers, and environmental organizations. In addition to gaining an audience with some of the top business and sustainability leaders in the United States, the winning team will receive $20,000 to invest in their business or product.

For more information, see below:

http://www.netimpact.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=3165

Operationsmgmtfinance-Individual

Group Operations,Mgmt,Finances feedback

Here is Marti’s bio from the Minnesota Cup website.

Marti Nyman is a senior business development executive with more than 20 years of success in creating growth for Fortune 500 companies. Having worked across a variety of industries (Energy, Telecommunications, Consumer Retail), Marti has extensive expertise in strategy development, growth opportunity identification, new venture creation (M&A, Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances) sales and territory management, relationship development and business execution. He has held leadership positions at GE, Ericsson, ADC Telecommunications and Best Buy. Most recently, he responsible for the formation and launch of Best Buy’s Venture Capital practice.

Mr. Nyman holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire, with a minor in Materials Science. He teaches a graduate level course on Corporate Venturing at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and is on the Board of Directors at SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education), as well as the Advisory Board of two startup companies. Mr. Nyman has an extensive network of influential relationships across Venture Capital, Investment Banking and Fortune 500 companies.

Also, I posted the GROUP Product and Market Presentation Evaluation form that I mentioned in my last post, here. I will post the INDIVIDUAL and GROUP Operations, Management, and Finances Presentation Evaluation form shortly.

1.       The stakeholder and relationships module (which covers corporate social responsibility and ethics, social entrepreneurship, and negotiation) will be summarized in just ONE class (this Thursday, 4/8), instead of taking three classes. There is only one short reading required reading: http://www.caseatduke.org/news/1207/Dees_Bloom_Ecosystem.html#cultivateecosystem
This module, along with extensive supplementary materials, is posted on the course website under Readings/Module 5.  Sources of funding will be discussed briefly prior to Marti Nyman’s guest speaking visit on April 20^th. The syllabus has been updated an posted on the website: http://www.techventuresource.org/te-syllabus-20100406.pdf

2.       We have posted a document entitled “Business Plan Outline” on the course website (here). It shows the basic structure of the business plan, suggested page limits for each section, and criteria that we will use in evaluating your business plan. You should address each of these criteria (where applicable) in making and supporting your claim of the worth of the business. The business plan grading rubric (posted here) references this document, so your grade will be linked to how well you address these topics in the limited space (18 pages (including the title page) of text, 8 pages of appendices) that you have for the business plan.

3.       Each group will give TWO more presentations prior to turning in the draft of their business plan. Each of these presentations corresponds to two of the five sections of the business plan shown in “A business plan outline”. The first is the Product and Market Presentation. The second is the Operations, Management, and Finances Presentation. We will have extensive time to think about and discuss each group’s plan, and each of you will be required to fill out an “Individual Feedback form” (for each group). This form relates details of the business plan to concepts that we have learned in class. After having time to fill out your “Individual Feedback Form,” you will then have time to discuss an additional question with your group, and you will fill out a “Group Feedback Form”  which will be given to the focal group at the end of class (this will be posted soon). After time for group discussion, each group will provide ONE specific and feasible suggestion to the focal group, and we will discuss this as a class. The total process will take about 30 minutes for each group as shown below:

4.       The remaining schedule is shown on the updated syllabus, which is included on the course website. It follows here:

a.       4/13 – Product and Market Presentations – Phase-1 Check, Juxtapose, DW-Eye

b.      4/15 – Product and Market Presentations – Tissue Database, Med School, Oncomir

c.       Guest Speaker: 4/20 Marti Nyman

d.      4/22 – Operations, Management, Finances Presentations – Phase-1 Check, Juxtapose, DW-Eye

e.      4/27 – Operations, Management, Finances Presentations – Tissue Database, Med School, Oncomir

f.        4/29 – Group Work Day (finish up plan and send it by midnight)

g.       5/4 – Feedback Day –

5.       Your individual feedback forms will take the place of the second quiz, since you will need to apply concepts from class to provide this feedback. If you have read the readings, attended class, and REVIEWED the  individual evaluation form shown on the course website (here) you should have enough time to fill out the feedback forms in class. These will all be submitted to the instructors. You can take the forms home to complete them, but if you do this, you must e-mail them to both of the instructors within 24 hours of class. We will compile the individual and group feedback forms, scan them, and send them to the presenting group. This will provide valuable feedback to them.

6.       The individual feedback forms will be graded by the group that receives the feedback. Each feedback form will be graded out of 20 possible points, with the average being 17. Your grade for the individual feedback forms will be the average of the grades that you received from the other five groups. If you do not turn in an individual feedback form by the deadline, you will receive a 0 for that form. The presenting group has FIVE days to return the grades, along with a two sentence explanation for each to the instructors, who will return the grades to the students.

We will also review all of the individual feedback forms and allot one bonus point to what we deem to be the TOP FIVE individual feedback forms for EACH presenting group. Thus, if you get a bonus point for all FIVE groups that you rate, you can get five bonus points. We will also award one bonus point to the two groups that give the best group feedback form for each presenting group. So again, if your group gives the best feedback for all five groups, you can earn a total of FIVE extra bonus points. It is theoretically possible (but not likely) to get 30/20 points with individual and group bonuses.

7.       The first three groups have a bit less than a week until they present next Tuesday, so you should all begin soon on preparing for this short presentation.

The BizPitch advertisement is shown below:

Your Chance to Win $500!

Opportunity to make a 90-second pitch on your new business idea to a panel of entrepreneurs and investors.

Cash prizes, feedback from experienced entrepreneurs and investors and opportunity to participate in the Business Hatchery program. Prior participants have gone on to raise capital and launch their BizPitch ideas.

Any undergraduate student currently enrolled at the University of Minnesota.

Sign up on website by March 31 (application form below) All applicants will receive feedback and advice on developing their idea Finalists will be notified by April 7th. Coaching and assistance available for finalists On April 13th give your 90-second pitch in front of panel of judges

$500 Grand Prize $100 Most Creative $100 Social Category $100 People’s Choice Award Winners will also be provided access to advisory services through the Holmes Center’s Business Hatchery to support them in their launch of their business idea

Scott Litman, Magnet360 Ann Ulrich, Bold! Companies of Ann Ulrich, Inc. Roy Wetterstrom, Revo Brand Group Jesse Bergland, NWML Ron Reimann, Zaptel

What makes a good business pitch? Answer these questions succinctly and you’re done!

• What is your product or service?
• What need does it address?
• Who is your customer and how big is the market?
• Who is your competition?
• What is your competitive advantage vs. competition?
• What is your business model?