Undergrad entrepreneurs stand to win $2,500

One lucky undergraduate entrepreneurial project will win $2,500 in the final round of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Society’s business plan competition.

The five submissions chosen for the last round of judging will be considered by a panel of judges made up of business gurus like Simon Pearce president Rob Adams ’90; CEO of Boloco John Pepper ’91; co-founder of Borealis Ventures Phil Ferneau ’84; and vice president of business development at the music company Instinctiv, Jake Dwyer ’03.

Judging will take place at Tuck beginning around 7 p.m., and the group presentations will be open to the public, DES vice president John Michel ’14 said.

An impressive 59 different business plans were submitted by the March 28 deadline for the first round of the competition, Michel said. About two thirds of the submitted plans were created by individuals, and the remaining third by groups of various sizes, he said. A panel of Tuck students helped DES cut the pool down to a total of five entries which will be judged to determine the competition’s winner.

“We’re hoping that the top prize will help make that business idea into a reality,” Michel said.

The selected proposals include one healthcare design model intended to improve efficiency, a re-pricing program that could help businesses make pricing decisions, a barcode-scanning iPhone app and a system to increase the ability of businesses to operate at full capacity.

Most entries were services rather than products, Michel said, and only one of the five groups who made it to the second round created a design for a physical commodity. This group is presenting its idea for a water bottle with a variety of flavors that could be added to water to create a tasty beverage, he said.

The top five groups will meet with professor Gregg Fairbrothers, director of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network at Tuck, over the next week to work on their competition presentations.

The competition was originally designed to let three groups move on to this round of judging, but DES decided to increase the number of second round spaces. Only the top three of these will walk away with monetary prizes.

The group, previously known as the Club of Dartmouth Entrepreneurs, last held the competition was last held in 2008. The group has been focusing on “rekindling the fire” as part of recent efforts to increase programming, Michel said.