If New Britain toolmaker Stanley Works long ago nailed down the title to Connecticut”™s greatest consumer-product brand, maybe we just need to give Matthew Brewer more time to nail down a reputation for his AmaZone ECOndoms.
He may need a little more than $1,000 to pull it off.
That is the amount the Yale University student and 15 other finalists are vying for in Connecticut Venture Group”™s annual business plan competition, which is open to university and collegiate student teams throughout Connecticut. Half of the finalists are either students in Fairfield County schools, or list a local hometown.
Despite Yale University recently concluding its own “Y50K” competition, which split $50,000 in cash among nine winners, just one of the Yale teams is also in the finals of the CVG entrepreneurship tournament ”“ Smooth Easy, which envisions setting up fruit smoothie vending machines.
A second Yale team, EcoInsure, is among the five finalists in a separate contest sponsored by Yale and four other schools to promote entrepreneurs with plans that have both a social and financial benefit. EcoInsure would create a Hartford-based company that would sell insurance covering the legal costs land trusts shoulder in defending and enforcing conservation easements.
Brewer suspects the limited CVG involvement by Yale students is partly a function of the fact that the e-mail alerting Yale students of the CVG contest arrived during the New Haven school”™s spring vacation.
But he added that the small amount CVG awards may not have been sufficient incentive for many Yale teams to enter the contest ”“ despite the extra carrot CVG dangles of two winners being able to present their business plans at its May Crossroads Venture Fair, which CVG bills as the largest in the Northeast.
“A lot of it comes down to time constraints,” Brewer said. “This is one of about five things I am doing as I wrap up my degree, so there is some cost-benefit analysis involved in the thought process of whether I am going to do this.”
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That is not the message CVG wants to hear, since its stated mission is to connect venture capitalists with entrepreneurs. While entrepreneurship contest organizers routinely tout the educational experience as the primary benefit, privately they hope to see real companies emerge.
CVG”™s contest last fall appears to have had just that result: EarthGuard, a University of Hartford team that shared last fall”™s prize, incorporated in February with plans to develop a biodegradable packaging product.
Project Air Jacket, a team from the a University of Bridgeport that shared the spoils with EarthGuard, has yet to indicate whether it is pursuing its business idea of selling inflatable vests to protect motorcycle riders in wipeouts.
CVG Executive Director Mike Roer recognizes that many student teams at Yale, the University of Hartford and other schools skip the CVG contest, and said he is working to pad the prize packages with donations from additional sponsors.
The state once backed the contest, but yanked funding after learning some teams incorporated elsewhere. Despite CVG titling the contest “You Belong in Connecticut,” Yale entry Smooth Easy has already indicated it will establish its main office in Atlanta this June.
“Right or wrong, the perception of sponsors is that it is not a competitive use of their ”¦ marketing dollars,” Roer said. “I”™m hoping that we (can) appeal to some entrepreneurs who have been successful ”“ someone who has been there, and who would be a good role model for the students, and also put up some prize money. It doesn”™t have to be a lot of money to build it up.”
The concept of a university business plan competition originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose contest has produced both heavyweight companies like Web traffic cop Akamai Technologies Inc., and lightweights like Cube-A-Door, which sells 5-foot-tall cardboard “doors” to provide privacy for office cubicles.
As the school”™s MIT $50K competition achieved international renown, copycat contests proliferated; the institute renamed the contest the $100K last year and doubled its prize purse, in part to keep up with inflation at competing contests.
As for Brewer? CVG was scheduled to award its prizes on April 20, after deadline.
Win or lose, he plans to pursue his idea of selling organic latex condoms produced in Brazil in “green” groceries like Whole Foods.
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