By Robert Taylor
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive this fall at UIW as students of all majors compete in the first New Venture Startup Competition. Teams of two to five students are vying for a $10,000 first place prize to be used as seed money for a startup business. First, they must develop a winning idea, complete with a functional business model and plans for future product development.
Aiding teams in the journey are mentors from the San Antonio business community as well as several workshops designed to help students fully develop their ideas. The New Venture Startup Competition – NVC for short – is being held in place of the Business Plan Competition, which the H-E-B School of Business and Administration hosted in recent years.
The New Venture Startup Competition
“The traditional Business Plan Competition encourages participants to write a lengthy and faultless business plan document and then seek implementation in the marketplace,” said Dr. Adesegun Oyedele, associate professor of international business. “The NVC adopts the lean startup approach, which encourages entrepreneurs to go into the marketplace from the get-go of conceiving an idea to test and validate their assumptions by talking to customers, technical experts and potential stakeholders.”
Teams will distinguish themselves from their competitors during the new investor focused judging process. Final presentations will be made in early December as teams pitch their ideas to local entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investment bankers who will serve as judges.
The New Venture Startup Competition is hosted by the H-E-B School of Business and Administration and the UIW chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization.
For more information, visit uiw.edu/hebsba/newventure.
