Campus hosts business plan competition

Students from around the state will compete in the 19th annual John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition at UM on Thursday, May 8.

Fifteen teams will pitch their business ideas to a panel of 35 distinguished judges as they vie for more than $35,000 in prize money. Competitors also will have the chance to network with venture capitalists, early-stage investors, investment bankers, economic developers and successful entrepreneurs.

Students submitted their business plans for consideration in late April. Selection judges met April 26 to review the submissions and selected 15 finalists for the May 8 event. The competition is organized by UM’s School of Business Administration and the Montana Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs, or MADE.

UM Associate Professor Jeffrey Shay took the reins of the competition four years ago. Since then he’s worked with MADE to institute several changes to the competition to enhance the real-world experience for students.

According to federal standards, 98 percent of Montana-based companies are considered small businesses. UM’s School of Business Administration keeps that stat in mind as it prepares students to enter the Montana work force.

For Shay and others in the school, that means “preparing Montana’s next generation of great entrepreneurs.” When he took the helm of the contest, Shay set about tailoring the John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition to meet that goal.

Shay’s first step was to increase the prize money. Before 2005 the amount given out had hovered around $4,000 for several years. Today the amount offered exceeds $35,000, and every team receives some sort of prize money for competing. UM’s contest offers students more prize money than several other similar events held in much larger cities.

“We actually give out more cash than Harvard,” Shay said.

Increasing the prize money allows the students more flexibility as they move into the real world, Shay said. Several past competitors have used their winnings to supplement their income while they worked low-paying internships in their fields or spent more time developing their plans and launching their companies.

Under Shay’s direction the competition also created several judge/coach positions. Each team is assigned a judge/coach who observes their first presentation during the competition, then meets with the students in private to offer advice on what worked and what didn’t. The teams then have the chance to implement those suggestions in later rounds of competition. Past judge/coach mentors have included high-level executives from Apple and Microsoft.

“The students come out glowing” after meeting with their judge/coach, Shay said. “Even if they don’t go on, they get that.”

The Business Plan Competition also features a poster presentation event where the 11 teams not making the final round display their business plans at the evening reception, which is attended by more than 250 business professionals and community leaders. Many of the plans eliminated earlier in the day draw the interest of investors at this time. Shay said several plans that don’t make it to the final round are still solid business ideas that could be successfully executed. The poster presentations provide those teams a chance to connect with potential investors.

“Even if you don’t make it to the finals, you still feel like part of the competition,” Shay said of the poster presentations.

New for the 2008 Business Plan Competition is the Elevator Pitch contest. All 15 teams will line up, and one person from each team will have three minutes to sell his idea to all the judges. There will be no question-and-answer session during this segment, and students will show just one slide while delivering their pitch.

Started in 1990, UM’s competition is one of the oldest in the nation. More than 500 students from Montana colleges and universities have participated in the annual event since its inception, and more than 50 plans showcased at the competition have been implemented.

“We really want to focus on businesses that promote economic growth,” Shay said of both the competition and the School of Business Administration. The goal, he said, is to foster the students who can execute solid business ideas with the hopes that “they will come back in five years and hire 10 UM students.”