Let the Games Begin! Business Concept Competition Fall 2013

Big news at the Center for Entrepreneurship. It’s time to get fired up for our biannual BUSINESS CONCEPT COMPETITION. We’ve been holding this competition every semester for the last six years and it has been quite a ride.

First a word about what the contest is…and isn’t. It is decidedly not a Business Plan contest. We are not looking for full blown 20-30 page plans. Rather we are looking for ideas; great thoughts, really, that can be turned into a business. At this stage all we’re looking for is a short PowerPoint that outlines your proposal. 

The contest is held in two parts. Part I looks over your PowerPoints. A panel of anonymous judges does the looking. We hide the judges’ identity because we don’t want them to be unduly influenced by any possible relationship with a specific contestant. So, the judging is an impartial as possible. Past judges have included successful entrepreneurs; young entrepreneurs; past board members of the Collegiate Entrepreneurial Association; current business owners, general managers and more. PowerPoints are due by 6 PM on Wednesday, October 30.

The judges whittle the contestants down to a more manageable number usually somewhere between 15 and 20 finalists who then will appear before a panel of judges on Finals Night which will be held on Thursday, November 14 at 7 PM in Holt 268. As always there are cash prizes for the winners.

For a complete set of rules and the contest PowerPoint template, go to http://www.csuchico.edu/cfe/.

The Contest is open to all Chico State students in all colleges. Past winners have gone on to some big things. Many have been funded by our Accelerator Fund. Some have gone on to turn their ideas into actual businesses. See the Upper Park Designs and Bizness Apps web sites for detail.

So get your thinking cap on. Our slogan this year is: “The best way to start a business is to find a problem and solve it.” We invite you to start solving.   

By the way, we’d love to hear from past students and alumni about their experiences and impressions of the Business Concept Competition. Post your comments on our FaceBook  page or at the bottom of the CfE Blogger page.

Good luck everyone!

Back in the Saddle

September 1 2013

Hi again.  A new school year, 2013-2014. Lots of exciting changes and new venues of exploration for the Chico State Center for Entrepreneurship. We have a new faculty member, Jim Downing, who brings a wealth of new ideas and experience for his years in Chicago. We have a new lineup of professors in the curriculum. Great leadership in the Collegiate Entrepreneurial Association.  We even, now, have a center. That’s right, a real room. Glenn 221. Come on by and check it out.

But before I blather on about the coming year, join me on a quick detour to my hometown, Detroit Michigan. I’m not going to brag about the Tigers, though they are looking awfully good. No, today’s topic is jewelry. You read that right – jewelry. And not just any jewelry, but kids’ bracelets and rings made out of rubber bands.

Choon Ng, is a mechanical engineer, who up until about 18 months ago worked for Nissan in the Detroit area. In 2010, according to an article in Entrepreneur magazine “With his wife’s formal blessing and access to the family’s $11,000 in savings, Ng spent $1,000 submitting an invention record, a preparatory document filed before submitting a patent. Ng, a crash-safety engineer at Nissan at the time, had generated 28 iterations of what is now known as the Rainbow Loom.” 

The Ng's eventually invested all of their savings and then some into getting molds produced in China and bringing in the first inventory which included delivery of exactly one ton of rubber bands to their home in suburban Motown. One ton.

Rainbow Loom is an ingenious mechanism that allows children to weave jewelry out of multicolored rubber bands. The Ng family – whose two teenage daughters, as you might imagine, were instrumental in helping Dad figure the mechanism out – produced a number of how-to videos on YouTube. It took a while, but about a year ago, they received their first major order from the Learning Express in the Atlanta area and the rest, as they say, is history. Now available throughout the nation at the Michael’s chain, Rainbow Loom has taken off.

My hope, of course, is that Rainbow Loom augurs new interest in all weaving, but that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, it’s great to be back.

Source:  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228081#ixzz2dfddkugJ