Worthwhile venture

Disposable sunglasses for the beach? Headphones for dogs? Bungee-cord trashcan lids?

Creative ideas swimming in the heads of Wright State University students are about to grab the spotlight with a campus-wide competition designed to result in the creation of a new business.

“Wright Venture” will climax April 17 with a series of do-or-die business pitches before a “Face the Wolves” panel of hard-to-please judges. The winning student enterprise will take home up to $5,000 in loan money to start its new business.

The competition is modeled after “Shark Tank,” an ABC-TV reality competition series that features aspiring entrepreneurs making business presentations to a panel of potential investors.

The goal of Wright Venture is to create a real-life, lasting experience that will be identical to an actual business startup. This experience is to include: networking, mentorship, creative idea development, product design, service creation, financial management, business planning and marketing skills.

“Wright Venture will give students the ability to apply some of the things they get from the classroom, express themselves in an entrepreneurial way, and find out if they’re cut out to be their own boss — or maybe they’re the next best employee somebody ever had,” said Earl Gregorich, director of Wright State’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and coordinator of Wright Venture.

Wright Venture is an offshoot of Gregorich’s effort for a more robust entrepreneurial program. He said the university does a great job of teaching the theories and concepts of accounting, finance and management, but the real world of starting a business goes beyond academics.

The deadline to enter Wright Venture by submitting a proposal and two-minute video pitch is Feb. 6.

“Starting a business is not for everybody,” he said. “So it’s best you learn it now rather than being $50,000 in debt and having a house on the line.”

Although the competition is available to students across disciplines, at least one member of a team must be from the Raj Soin College of Business. Participants will receive guidance with their plans from mentors and the SBDC, an office that averages at least 25 business startups every year, the retention of 500 to 600 jobs and sees up to $5 million in capital investments.

Gregorich says the competition will force the students to analyze their business idea more closely and overcome challenges to make their businesses even better than they originally envisioned.

“If they know they’re in competition with other ideas and have to prove their idea is the better idea, they’ll spend a little more time on it, put a little more effort into it, be a little more creative with it,” he said.

Students interested in the program must first submit a proposal and a two-minute video pitch by Feb. 6 explaining their business idea and why it is worthy for consideration by the “Wolves.”

The teams whose videos are accepted by the judges must then produce comprehensive business plans by March 20. Classes on how to write a business plan will be offered by the SBDC on Feb. 18 and 25.

A review committee will judge the business plans and on March 27 select three to five finalists, who on April 17 will make a final, formal presentation to a high-profile panel of judges that will include university officials and local entrepreneurs. The fast-paced presentations will be made at Raj Soin College of Business before an audience of classes and a film crew.

The winning team receives a loan of up to $5,000 to start its business. The loan must be repaid over the expected two-year period the business is operated.

“The winning team will then either have an ongoing concern and a business or they will have learned an awful lot along the way,” Gregorich said.

Wright Venture was created by the James Family Student Entrepreneurship Program and is funded by the James Family Foundation.

For more information, visit: WrightVenture.com.