The Mississippi State University Entrepreneurship Center and the College of Business Marketing, Quantitative Analysis & Business Law Services Innovation Group are sponsoring the third annual student e-business competition.
The competition is funded by the Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship.
First prize for the competition is $5,000, second is $500 and third is $250. A three-page business proposal is due April 8 by 4 p.m. and it should give an overview idea of what the team wants to do.
Associate professor in the College of Business, Robert Moore, said he oversees the competition from start to finish and also makes the competition a part of his Internet Marketing class.
He said the business proposal does not have to be something that currently exists and it does not have to be 100 percent unique. Moore said winners from past years wanted to implement their plan whether they won the competition or not.
“The first phase of the competition is the three-page proposal,” Moore said. “A panel of five judges selects the top three or four proposals. Two weeks later, the team presents their plan on the last day of class.”
Local business owners vote and ultimately make the final decision, Moore said. The winners are assigned a mentor for the summer and they are given the resources needed at no charge.
“One year a team did not win the competition but one of the judges liked them so much that he individually funded the team,” Moore said. “This is an opportunity for students of any level. If they have a passion for this, then they need to be involved.”
Gerald Nelson, director of the Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship, helped create the event at MSU.
“This competition is a vital part of building an entrepreneur ecosystem at Mississippi State,” Nelson said.
Michael Allen, one of the past judges for the competition, even offered to be a mentor for the winning team, Nelson said. He is very successful and owns an online Web site, Shopping-Bargains.com.
Jesus Valdez, marketing research consultant for the Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship and a MBA graduate assistant, said this competition has grown over the past three years.
“It has continued to grow over the years as more and more students have recognized the need for an entrepreneurship mindset,” Valdez said. “The competition entails students taking their business idea from conception to implementation. They use the power of the Internet to sell a product, create a service, or to create a E-Commerce site of their choice.”
The 2009 E-Business Competition winner, Scott Montgomery, said he has been working hard since his win last year.
“Since the competition we have completed the development of our web interface and we’re currently in production of our first product offering,” Montgomery said. “The people at the Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship have been a great support.”
He said the competition did help with start-up capital. However, it was valuable in other ways.
“For me, the real value of winning has been in the connections I’ve been able make,” Montgomery said. “Starting any business from scratch requires more than just money. It takes the constant dedication of the entrepreneur and a strong support system of friends and family that surround him or her.”