Entrepreneurship is alive and well in St. Louis — and it involves audience participation.
On Nov. 9, 14 semifinalist teams in the Olin Cup Competition, the annual business formation contest at the John M. Olin School of Business, presented their business proposals in an “elevator pitch” (a brief overview so concise it can be delivered in the span of an elevator ride) to a panel of judges.
In a new twist to this year’s competition, the 14 ideas also were presented to a public audience, which voted on which pitch should win based on the viability of the business venture and its probability of success.
The judges halved the number of semifinalists to seven teams, which were selected to move on to the finals in January.
The audience member whose selections were the closest match to the judges received a $250 cash prize from the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which organizes the competition.
“The audience members were given the same evaluation sheet the judges used earlier in the day,” said Kenneth A. Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center and senior lecturer in entrepreneurship. “It was a huge opportunity for people to connect and help each other.”
This year’s semifinalists were selected from a pool of 25 — almost twice as many as last year. Also up were the number of student submissions and life-sciences submissions. Entries included a wide range of proposals such as high-tech products that monitor food safety, new applications for mobile devices, technical writers for start-up businesses and medical supplements to slow bone loss.
The judges, who include representatives from venture capital firms, incubators, service providers and other area universities, selected the following finalists:
• Bio Rankings, which offers a statistical data analysis service to provide more easily interpreted data to biomedical and bio-technology researchers;
• ChemBionix, a seed-stage device company developing, manufacturing and marketing the next generation of real-time biological and chemical sensors for food and environmental safety;
• Natural Capital, which would develop homes in historic neighborhoods using low-impact, efficient operating systems to provide a unique, healthy living space with no annual energy-use costs;
• Neurolife, to provide a noninvasive means of measuring intracranial pressure used in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological patients;
• Senetric, which would provide cost-effective Radio Frequency Identification solutions to small and medium businesses;
• Smart DNA Solutions, a comprehensive genetic testing laboratory offering affordable genetic testing for consumers; and
• Social Network Systems, which is developing a customer-relationship management product using social network analysis techniques to automate functions performed by end-users.
Four of the final seven — Bio Rankings, Natural Capital, Neurolife and Smart DNA Solutions — are student-owned or student-supported ventures. Teams that are not student-owned or student-supported must include at least one WUSTL alumnus.
The finalists’ next step is to complete a full business plan, then make a presentation to the judges in January. The winners will be announced at a public awards ceremony Feb. 1.
At stake is $70,000 in seed investments for the new ventures. Since 2005, the competition also has awarded a $5,000 cash prize to the best student-owned or student-supported team.
“I think all the teams found it very valuable to see each other’s elevator pitch,” Harrington said. “It was inspiring to see them collaborate afterward and help each other. The audience was impressed with the quality of this year’s ideas, and it was great that two of the teams that advanced to the finals were from Saint Louis University. It shows that the Olin Cup is open to everyone and that it is helping to build an innovation economy in St. Louis.”
Peter Eagan, a member of the Senetric team, won the $250 audience prize. Eagan picked five of the seven winning teams in the same order as the judges.
Since the competition was founded in 1987, the event has resulted in more than 60 start-up companies.
In 2003, the University was challenged by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to create a new model for entrepreneurial education that followed a multidisciplinary, cross-campus theme to involve a diverse population of students and facutly. The University was selected as one of eight schools that were awarded a combined $25 million over five years.
The competition is co-sponsored by Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP; St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association; Lopata, Flegel & Co. LLP; and Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus PC.