The Ups and Downs of Business

WFU’s Babcock School Presents 10th Annual Elevator Competition

Let’s face it -- in a turbulent economy, any business can have its ups and downs. Just getting a business off the ground is a challenge, but having funding and interested investors can seem a distant dream. That’s where WFU’s Babcock School 10th Annual Elevator Competition gives upstart companies, represented by college students (some who are MBA candidates), the exposure and forum to pitch their ’company’s’ idea to judges, many who are real-life venture capitalists.

26 Floors and 2 Minutes Goes By Quickly Members of 29 teams from 23 universities, including WFU, were allotted 2 minutes (which is equivalent to riding from the 1st floor to the 26th floor at the Wachovia Building in downtown Winston-Salem and back down again), to talk very quickly about their business ideas. The whole concept came after a chance meeting between a professor at Stanford and Stan Mandel, the Executive Professor & Director, Angell Center for Entrepreneurship at the Babcock Graduate School of Management, and Elevator Competition Co-Founder and Faculty Adviser. “A little over 11 years ago while I was attending a conference, a professor shared with me that she would take her students in an elevator to get them to focus during their presentations. I filed that away and thought, what a concept to offer MBA students and college students an opportunity to share their business ideas on an elevator ride, while being observed by a judge, who is experienced in the business world,” recalled Mandel. Fast forward to 2009, and the competition is celebrating its 10th year as a student-run event known across the globe for having the best and brightest minds set to enter the business arena.

Appealing to the Concerns and Interests of Today’s Students Diana Morse, an event co-chair and second-year MBA student at WFU said, “This is the second year that we have had two separate competitions, one for the traditional business, for profit and the second one addressing societal concerns, which is a real important part of today’s students.” After two rides in the elevator, the best pitches proceeded to make a 20- minute ’board room’ presentation on their business plans to a panel of judges. The Traditional track winning team was awarded a cash prize of $10,000, while the Social Entrepreneurship winner received $5,000, as well as about $65,000 worth of legal and marketing services split between the two winners. In addition to three WFU teams, other universities that participated in the competition were Yale University, BYU, University of Arkansas, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University, just to name a few. Morse continued, “With the state of the economy, now is the time to find those business ventures that will take hold and provide benefits to society, whether they be social or environmental, or through job creation.”

Tears for Life: A Company Changing Lives, One Woman at a Time Tears for Life CEO Jared Greer, and CFO Bessie Williams, are 2009 MBA candidates from the University of Arkansas. Together, they worked hard on the presentation of their company. “Tears for Life is a medical diagnostic equipment company developing a test kit that screens for breast cancer using human tears. It is a less invasive test for breast cancer that holds great promise in changing the lives of women, one woman at a time.” Greer and his team recently took first place overall in a pitching competition at the University of Cincinnati and won a 60-second fast pitch competition at the University of Louisville. The Tears for Life team did make it through to the ’board room’ here, but did not win. The team from the University of Michigan won in the Traditional competition and the team from University of Virginia Darden School won in the Social Entrepreneurship competition.

HomeBy3.Com: Matching Employees with Professional Level Jobs For the home team, Kevin Cain, a 2009 WFU MBA candidate shared his company, HomeBy3.Com with judges, which he started with Sherry Moss, Director of Full-time MBA Program and Associate Professor of Organizational Studies. “HomeBy3.Com offers an internet job board that matches flexible employees with flexible, professional-level jobs, hopefully allowing the worker to be ’home by 3,’” stated Moss.

For more information on the MBA program at WFU visit www.mba.wfu.edu.