The Entrepreneurship Center at Mississippi University held its Final Start-up Competition award ceremony for eWeek 2015 at the Hunter Henry Center on April 10 at 4:00 pm.  
eWeek gives students who have started their own companies the opportunity to  pitch their business ideas to a group of established entrepreneurs for the chance to win large money prizes they can use to further their business. 
The grand prize winners, a company named Vibe, received $10,000 from Tellus Operating Group, who sponsors the prize money.  
There were also bonus People’s Choice awards decided by the audience that added $250 to the total winnings of the companies the people voted for. Vibe and a company called Consumable both won the People’s Choice award for separate events. 
Vibe, a team comprised of Kaylie Mitchell and Hagan Walker, provides clubs, hotels and restaurants with and atmospheric lighting and flavors for drinks. 
Kylight’s mission, the runner-up company, is to improve the longevity of organic products by using the germicidal properties of UV rays.
John Mooney, senior marketing major, said he put a lot of work into naming his business and talking to numerous people to market his winning company Consumable. 
“I’m still working on funding because there’s a lot of moving parts,” Mooney said. “But the initial business is pretty hot.” 
Mooney said the Entrepreneurship center at MSU helped him build his idea and get feedback from successful entrepreneurs. 
“It’s a great place to hatch different ideas,” Mooney said. “When you surround yourself with entrepreneurs you think in that mindset and it changes the way you look at the world.”
Mooney said his company will supply products people use on a regular basis and the target market would be college students. 
“We ship you your needs on a regular basis such as toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste, body wash and q-tips,” Mooney said. “We send all those on intervals so a person doesn’t have to run out of the products,because we’ve all had that frustrating moment.” 
Johnie Sublett, senior aerospace engineering major, said he entered the eWeek competitions with his company Smart Drone, LLC., and the E-center helped him obtain $500 funding for the prototype.
“It’s giving me a real world business sense,” Sublett said. “You are having to talk to real world investors and it’s a great way to get easy investment.” 
Sublett said his company builds quadcopters, small helicopters with four rotors. Subett participated in the elevator pitch competition during the eWeek.
“We’re not the first people to do develop this but we are innovating the features with added functionality,” Sublett said. 
Keith Kakadia, senior marketing major, said he participated in the competition with an internal project of his main company Sociallyin. 
“We were in the post revenue stage of the competition and won a People’s Choice Award of $250,” Kakadia said.
He  said the E-center provided immense support for his company, and now Sociallyin is an extremely successful business. Sociallyin provides companies with social media, graphic design and web development services to enhance their profit, Keith said.
“E-center has been a tremendous help in finding new things for us,” Kakadia said. “Definitely wouldn’t be here without them.” 
Teams were judged based on venture potential and possibility of long-term success. Each team had 10 minutes to present in front of the judges and five minutes for question and answers. 
The judges were Chip Miskelly (Miskelly Furniture), Keith Mooney (Cadence Bank), Aaron Paul (Acquisition Finders), Abby Thompson (Camgian Microsystems), Ben Walton (MS Angel Network), Bubba Weir (InnovateMS). 
Tellus Operating Group, LLC, Talos Energy LLC, MSU Lumnus Mark Dumas, Baker Donelson, MSU College of Business and Bagely College of Engineering supported eWeek.