EP Entrepreneurship Competition Winners

Posted May 04, 2010, 02:09:22 PM

Congratulations to the Business Plan Track winners of the EP Entrepreneurship Competition!

1st place: Ulterius
2nd place: DiaVibe
3rd place: Ivy Assist

Good luck with your entrepreneurial endeavors and thank you to the audience members who came out to vote!

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Congratulations to the EP Entrepreneurship Competition!

Posted April 22, 2010, 06:44:21 PM

The finalists for each track are as follows, and in no specific order:

The Social Venture Track:

Rainwater for Humanity (Carolyn Aker)
Capital Good Fund (Erik Dukaime)
Transforming Trash (Bridget McGinn)
U Energy (Kyle Schutter)
CO Fund (Cody Simmons)

The Business Plan Track:

Solubricin (Jose Vasconez, Brian Neff)
Ivy Assist (Eric Gastfriend)
DiaVibe (Adam Leonard)
QuickCards (Brandon Kaufmann, Zachary Kelton, David Chanin)
Spearmus (Ryan Chan, Laurielle Hofer, Allen McGonagill)
Ulterius (Greg Stephina, Juan Vasconez, Jeff Hay, Amy Liang, Ibiayi Briggs, Nick Elenz-Martin)

The Final Round of Judging will take place on Saturday, May 1st in MacMillan Hall.

From 9 AM- 12 noon, each team will present in private to a panel of judges. Each team will have 15 minutes to present and 15 minutes for Q&A.

At 1 PM, the live portion of the judging will begin. Each team will give a "brief pitch" to the live audience-- 3 minutes. The audience will be allowed to ask 3 questions.

Congrats again!

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Mentorship Office Hours

Posted April 08, 2010, 06:53:42 PM

Thursday, Apr. 8th 4-7pm,

Mr. David Caluori will be in the EP office. Mr. Caluori is Vice President at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stow,a health-care focused private equity fund. He is a seasoned financial professional and venture capitalist. David has an in depth knowledge of how businesses and organizations function and what it takes to launch a new venture.

Friday, Apr. 9th 1-4pm,

Ms. Elaine Berke will be in the EP office. Ms. Berke is the founder of jobsmartz.net. She also works as a consultant for EBI Consulting. Consulting clients include universities, hospitals, technology, financial services, non-profits, growth companies, start-ups. Expertise in assessment, solution design and implementation - change, management and leadership, customer experience, strategic planning, coaching and teams. She is eager to help students within the consulting, health-care and non-profit arenas, as well as any other upstart venture.

To register for either of these hours, please e-mail Michael Perchonok (michael_perchonok@brown.edu). Please include the time slot (every 45min in the listed time), phone number, and a brief description of your plan. Groups are encouraged to apply together.

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Mentorship Office Hours with Dave Durfee

Posted March 17, 2010, 04:50:18 PM

Brown Entrepreneurship Program will be having office hours this Wednesday, March 17th, with Dave Durfee.

Mr. Durfee is the CEO & Chief Scientist at Bay Computer Associates, Inc., in Cranston, RI. Bay Computer Associates is a full-service software and electronics research and design firm, which provides software and electronics design services across industries for many types of companies. Mr. Durfee is a graduate of Brown, class of '80, and is teaching ENGN 1580: Communication Systems this semester. With a vast knowledge of software and electronics design, and the the world of start-up ventures, Mr. Durfee is a great resource to any student interested in these fields or any interest in forming a start-up of their own.

From the Bay Computer Associates website:

"Since 1989, BCA's design group has been providing contract software and electronics for many types of companies both large and small, established firms as well as startup ventures.

Our core business is electronics design and software development. Our electronics design services include design, layout, prototyping, embedded software, and introduction to manufacturing. Our software development services include Windows, Unix, and Web applications. We've been designing FDA-approved medical devices since the early 1990's, making Medical Design one of our well-established specialties.

With 20+ permanent design engineers, we have a well-developed team approach, so that even the smallest projects benefit from our shared knowledge base."

Office hours will be held in the EP Office from 10am-1pm at 130 Hope St. The time slots will be 30 minutes.

Please e-mail molly_chambers@brown.edu to sign up. Please include a contact number and a short description of your idea/business plan.

There will also be office hours the week after spring break, details will be announced at a later date.

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$60,000 EP Entrepreneurship Competition

Posted March 10, 2010, 09:42:41 PM

Do you have a business plan or social venture idea but need money to help move it forward? The Social Innovation Initiative (SII) and the Entrepreneurship Program (EP) at Brown have partnered together to create a two-track competition giving away over $60,000 in cash and in-kind prizes!

The new EP Entrepreneurship Competition offers student teams a means to seek further support and give their entrepreneurial ventures the additional support they need to succeed. Many successful businesses have come through the EP Competition (formally the EP Business Plan Competition), including Zeo, and Runa. Last year, Runa even went on to win the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition (Yes, you can enter both!)

SII is a student run initiative sponsored by Brown University's Swearer Center for Public Service that works to inspire and support student and alumni social entrepreneurs through the creation of a community that expands critical skills, knowledge, resource, and social networks.

Project narratives/business plans for both tracks are being accepted until April 5th, 2010, and the final public judging will be on May 1st. Please send your submissions to ep@brown.edu.

To qualify for the social venture track, a project's primary and explicit goal must work toward solving or addressing one or more specific social issues. Projects can be non-profit, for-profit, or use a blended model but would cap the return to investors at a low fixed rate. For more information visit http://swearercenter.brown.edu/sii/funding/27/sii-grants and to apply contact sii.grants@gmail.com.

Previous SII Grant winners are welcome to apply so long as their project includes a new social venture component. All other previous applicants are encouraged to apply as well.

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The 13th Annual EP Forum

Posted February 24, 2010, 12:46:50 AM

Our biggest event of the year, the EP Forum gives students the opportunity to hear and learn from world class entrepreneurs; connect with each other, professors, alumni, and other professionals; and share ideas in an open and exciting atmosphere.

Where: Smith-Buonano Hall
When: Saturday, March 6, 2010
Time: 1:00 pm- 5:00 pm
Open to the public. $10 Admission.
Free with Brown or RISD ID.

The Forum is an afternoon dedicated to celebrating entrepreneurship for students, alumni, and successful entrepreneurs. This year's forum is dedicated to Professor Barrett Hazeltine in honor of his 50th year at Brown. Barrett Hazeltine has played an integral role in fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship on Brown's campus.

For the full schedule of the event, please click here.

To register and purchase tickets, please click here.

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Ultra-Bootstrapping: Building a Scrappy Startup in under a $1,000

Posted February 08, 2010, 08:46:19 PM

The current macroeconomic climate with tight credit and cautious venture capitalists presents unparalleled opportunities for those that can thrive with constrained resources. Many startups are now following the Scrappy Startup model.

In this workshop you will learn to create a new venture using latest techniques where almost all resources are free or almost free. The insights from two entrepreneurs who have done this and teach this method will be enlightening and useful. We will share techniques, methods and insights on where to find data, customers and markets for your next big idea - all for under a grand.

Conducted by:

Naeem Zafar, Faculty member, Berkeley-Haas Business School, founder Concordia Ventures

Jonathan Boutelle, founder and CTO of SlideShare

When: Tuesday, February 23rd

Where: Cooley Godward Kronish LLP
5 Palo Alto Square
3000 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA 94306

Program:

6:30 pm Networking

7:00 pm Ultra bootstrapping Workshop
8:30 Q&A

9:00 pm Adjourn

Cost is $20 and it will be collected by Brown EP group that is a nonprofit - all proceeds directly go to them for fund raising purposes.

To purchase tickets, click here.

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A Talk with Micah Solomon: "Building a powerful business from scratch with the help of your customers"

Posted January 26, 2010, 10:48:27 PM

Building a powerful business from scratch with the help of your customers:
How to achieve entrepreneurial success by attending to the folks who pay the bills.

When: February 4th, 5pm
Where: Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106

Who: MICAH SOLOMON '87 is President of Oasis Disc Manufacturing, the company he famously built up from a one-room operation into a leader in the entertainment and technology industries. His techniques and achievements have been featured in Success magazine, Seth Godin's bestseller Purple Cow, and in other case studies and profiles in the business press. The founder of the College of The Customer website (www.collegeofthecustomer.com), Micah is a sought-after business advisor and speaker.

Micah is co-author of the upcoming-April-release Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, with Leonardo Inghilleri of The Ritz-Carlton and West Paces Consulting, foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publication is by AMACOM Books (The American Management Association imprint) and it is distributed internationally by McGraw-Hill Books. Micah's personal website is www.micahsolomon.com and he'll be happy to hear from you by email at micah@micahsolomon.com

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