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Winners named in state-wide business plan competition

An online weigh-loss program that gives participants their “security deposit” back if they reach dieting goals and a company that hopes to make low-cost laboratory equipment won this year’s West Virginia University Statewide Student Business Plan Competition.

Business Plan Competition Winners - Jessica Oswald and John Failing.

The competition was held recently at WVU with 20 teams out of an original field of 66 entries from 11 state colleges and universities. The winners, both from WVU, got $10,000 cash prizes and a bundle of services to help them start their business in West Virginia.

In the lifestyle category, John Failing and Jessica Oswald won with their Bet on Weight Loss business plan. Failing is an MBA student from Cumberland, Md., and his team partner Oswald is from Haleiwa, Hawaii, graduating this spring with a master’s degree in public health.

The pair believe that participants in the diet program -- with their own money as a motivator -- will be financially interested in reaching their weight-loss goals. Also, their website will feature a member-supported social-networking community and offer comprehensive information about losing weight.

Physic majors Nicholas Anthony of Wheeling and Andrew Higgins of Grafton, W.Va., won in the innovation category for their company Advanced Research Instrumentation. Anthony is also an electrical engineering double major senior, and Higgins is a sophomore.

The pair spent the last year and one-half working in a physics laboratory with Dr. Sergei Urazhdin and plan to use their knowledge of physics and their experiences in a laboratory to develop flexible instrument infrastructure at a low cost.

"Besides the $10000," Higgins said, "the competition has helped ARI get in touch with the area's best business people, from venture capitalists to bankers to business consultants, and we hope to be in close contact with them. ARI was also awarded start-up services such as legal, accounting, printing, and office space, which will greatly help us on our way to bringing our products to market."

Entrepreneurship Center Director Mindy Walls commented, “Each year the event becomes more competitive. Each team prepared a top-quality plan and had a very strong presentation. The judges had a difficult time selecting the winners and in some cases only a few points separated the top finishers.”

The annual competition began in the WVU College of Business and Economics in 2003. Its purpose is to encourage students to think like entrepreneurs and to create new businesses for the state. To enter, each team submitted a three- to five-page summary of a business idea in either the innovation or lifestyle category. The summaries were scored by panels of judges from across the region.

The dieting idea came to Oswald while she was in line at a restaurant at an airport. She didn’t think it would win. “When they announced the winner, it took me a while to figure out it was us,” she said. “My partner and I have spent countless hours reworking our business model, contacting people, and practicing our presentation. When hard work is rewarded, it feels good. Now reality is setting in. We need to focus and get the ball rolling on our concept.”

The lead-up to the competition was hard work, Oswald said. “Writing a business plan and entering competitions is humbling. It’s easy to think you have the best idea out there, but when it’s time to work out the minutiae, you gain a better perspective of what is needed and the strengths and weaknesses of your concept. Some of the individuals we consulted were harsh and unrelenting and we were able to improve our model from these criticisms.”

The next step, Failing said, is to hire a technology manager, build a website to launch soon, and start taking clients. “My partner actually developed the initial concept the night before the business plan deadline last fall,” he said. “I was prepared to enter another plan that I had been working on, but her excitement for BetOnWeightLoss could not be ignored.”

For more information, www.be.wvu.edu/bpc for competition documents and resources. -Contact: Mindy Walls 304-293-7221