Entrepreneurs compete for capital

What do Google, Starbucks and Nike all have in common? For starters, the founders had an idea with enough potential to draw money from investors that, in turn, allowed them to obtain unlimited success as well as a global popularity.

The Orfalea College of Business and Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) is holding its annual Ray Scherr Business Plan Competition, a three-stage contest that seeks to help provide funding and networking for campus-affiliated entrepreneurs and their business ideas.

“This is for any student, faculty or staff,” said Chris McCann, the director of the Ray Scherr Business Plan Competition.

SIFE is an international non-profit organization with a chapter based at Cal Poly.

“We do student-led projects that help students in some way,” said Brian Riley a business senior and former president of SIFE. “There is always like six or seven projects going on at one time.”

This year’s competition features $10,000 in potential prize money that will be awarded to three teams.

McCann, now a business senior, has run the competition for the past two years and said that it is a great opportunity to get feedback on ideas as well as an opportunity for students to develop a network of contacts.

The first-place winner will receive $4,000 and the runner-up and the community winner will each receive $3,000 for their plans.

Scherr, the founder of the Guitar Center retail chain, is providing the $10,000 for the competition as a gift to the entrepreneurship programs within the Orfalea College of Business.

McCann said that 140 people showed up at the information night last year and that it provides a good opportunity to network with or without an idea to start from.

“(The competition) forces you to do your idea,” McCann said. “It shows you how to make that idea into something tangible … some people submit and they don’t even have an idea.”

Workshops and seminars designed to familiarize participants with the concepts and procedures of writing a business plan will be held prior to the selection of the semifinalists, according to the contest’s Web site.

In addition to the potential prize money from the Scherr competition, the contests winner will advance to a regional competition put on by Draper Fisher Jurveston – a large and successful venture capital firm – for a chance at a $250,000 grand prize.

Making it to the regional competition is not only an honor, but an excellent opportunity to pitch the plan to the numerous venture capitalist companies that will be attending said McCann.

“Even if you don’t win that competition there’s hundreds of investors there to see your idea,” he said.

Tricia Compas, an environmental and civil engineering graduate student, can attest to that.

Compas and her five-person team won the Ray Scherr Business Plan Competition last year and advanced to the Draper Fisher Jurveston competition for their idea H20 2 GO – a product that would help supply fresh water in times of disaster.

“We continually learned and even through the final presentations we (were) still learning what needs to be addressed when starting a business,” Compas said in a telephone interview.

She added that the start-up company has since changed its name to Polytech Waterbag because the original name was widely used by other organizations.

Compas also said the Draper Fisher Jurveston competition provided a real-world opportunity to share and discuss business strategies with other groups as well as venture capitalists looking to invest. Her group did not advance in the competition but she said that experience was beneficial.

“Even though we didn’t win, we were still really able to improve and continue with this project,” Compas said. “We were fortunate to have had this opportunity.”

The competition kicks off on Oct. 28 with an information night that will take place at 7 p.m. in the Sandwich Factory at Cal Poly.

From the information night, groups will move to the second phase of drafting a business plan and judges will pick a select number of groups that will advance to the semi-finals, and eventually the finals before awarding prizes.