Michigan State University’s
Broad College of Business is making sure their students are armed with the power to be entrepreneurs upon graduation. The new Broad MBA Business Plan Competition challenges students to come up with an original business idea, submit a plan and then provides support and training to help the best of the plans come to life.
“The goal of the competition is to induce the students to come up with original business ideas and learn how to prepare business plans that can raise venture capital financing,” says Zsuzsanna Fluck, MSU finance professor and director of the Center for Venture Capital, Private Equity and Entrepreneurial Finance. “The ultimate goal of the competition is to create and fund successful new companies.”
The final competition was held on March 24 by a panel of MSU alumni entrepreneurs and venture capital investors from around the nation after finalists were announced on March 18. In its first round, 74 MSU students in 19 teams entered the competition. The winning team will receive $3,000 and travel support to next-level competition on a state, regional or national level.
“The race was very tight,” Fluck says of the first round of the competition. “We intended to choose six finalists but we ended up selecting seven.”
Many of the ideas developed by the teams of students were highly innovative. Finalists included MeTrak, a social media company focused on giving control to individuals over their data on the internet; Spartan Green Technologies, a concept around a new green adhesive bonding technology; and Zoom Cash, a concept to introduce a new electronic payment technology to rural India.
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