Sixteen teams advance one step closer to being the $25,000 Big Idea Competition winner
By Christine Haworth, BSBA ’18, MSE ’19
This past Friday, the “Sweet 16” final contestants for the Big Idea Competition were announced.
Over 200 teams originally registered to be in the competition back in December, the most initial entrants the competition has seen since its inception.
Dr. Brent Berthy leading the Business Plan Lab course in April.
The 16 teams that advanced to the semi-finals of the 2019 UF Big Idea Competition include:
Bl!nk
Blitz
Flozo Science Kits
Laundr
LiveGreen
Orchard
Quality for Patients
Providers, and Payers (QP3)
The Reagan Group
Red Boot Goat Farm
Research Blocks
Restearn
SEB Plastics
Symbionix
Techpawlogy
Thompson Consulting
Witty Bitty Baby
I had the opportunity to be in the competition, and although my team did not make it to the final 16, the competition has pushed me to grow as an entrepreneurial thinker and prepare me for any future business I might want to pursue.
Master of Accounting student Matt Blockus and Dr. Gary McGill, Associate Dean and Director of the Fisher School of Accounting, help Shelia Austin and Steven Rodgers with the financials for Red Boot Goat Farm’s business plan in the Business Plan Lab this April.
The process to submit a final business plan is definitely not a walk in the park. Contestants spend countless hours refining and editing their business plan after the reviews from the various rounds of the competition, all to get it ready for the final submission.
Some participants have been preparing by taking or auditing the Business Plan Lab run by Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center Clinical Professor Dr. Brent Berthy. The class covers the entirety of what should be in the business plan and how to set up your future business for success.
One of the participants to make it to the “Sweet 16” is Shelia Austin, current student in the Thomas S. Johnson Master of Science in Entrepreneurship (MSE) program, and founder of the Red Boot Goat Farm team.
“Being a participant in the Big Idea Competition is exciting, exhausting, time consuming AND going through the process challenges all of the assumptions you start with,” she said.
“The Big Idea Competition is the perfect opportunity to really put some effort to doing more than just talking about the business you’d like to have,” she continued. “Quite possibly, the ideas you start the process with will not be the model you end up with, and you might find out your idea really is not feasible, but the skills learned along the way will be valuable for the next business idea you have.”
The final rounds of the competition will take place April 25-26 in Heavener Hall starting at 1:30 pm on Thursday, April 25 and are open to the public. Winners will be announced on April 26, with someone winning the $25,000 grand prize. Check back then to see who has the next Big Idea!
