Business plan competition!
What?
Yes, this is the most important part in your second semester of the TEAM program. This is also the most essential part of TEAM program! I have to say second semester is the most exciting semester of the TEAM program. We acquired basic business knowledge and skills in the first semester, and now it is time to put them into practice! Students have two courses related to business plan development: General Management of New Ventures and Product Development and Technical Management.
Imagine the following situations: you form a team, which will work on real-world cool ideas, which could change the world! Your team’s job is to use these cool ideas to MAKE MONEY! No, I am not joking; you may think there are many uncertainties and a lack of time to make ideas profitable, but let me provide another factor: there are many business plan competition opportunities at or sponsored by the University of Rochester, each of them with a cash prize:
- Mark Ain Business Model Competition
This competition is made possible by support from Simon alumnus and entrepreneur Mark S. Ain ’67S (MBA), open to all students at the University of Rochester, with a first-place cash prize of $10,000.
- New York Business Plan Competition
This competition is open to currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students from accredited New York colleges and universities. It is a statewide competition and the finalists compete for more than $500,000 in cash and in-kind prizes.
- Rochester Regional Business Plan Contest
This contest mainly targets early stage companies, however, students are also welcome to participate. The first-place winner will receive a $25,000 cash prize.
Actually there are plenty of other business plan competitions; I just listed the three major contests. Most TEAM students will take part in the first two competitions, and for the Mark Ain Business Model Competition, you usually see TEAM students in the top three teams! So, as you can see, TEAM students have a great chance to MAKE MONEY through these competitions.
Since I am talking about business plans, I really want to talk more about my team. We are working on a patented high-efficiency nano-membrane based portable hemodialysis device. Currently patients with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) need to go to the hospital every other day in order to get 3 or 4 hours of hemodialysis treatment, which is very inconvenient. This situation affects at least 10% of people in the United States, not including patients in the rest of the world. Therefore, there is a huge demand for our portable hemodialysis device. I have great team members and a great coach (the inventors of the patent also work with us). All of us are working hard on this business plan which is really promising! I think it is really cool that we could replace a large hemodialysis machine with portable iPod-sized devices, which could greatly improve patient quality of life, while also lessening government medical care expenses.
Do you feel excited about this? No worries, you will have a similar wonderful experience like me in the second semester!
– Bowei Zhang ’14 (MS)
