Winners of Tufts' eighth-annual $100K Business Plan Competition were announced last Wednesday following the second and final screening of a round of ten finalists.
The annual competition, sponsored by the Gordon Institute's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, awarded two first-place prizes to Tufts undergraduates Adrienne Dreyfus and Hillary Sieber for their business proposals in the Classical Business Plan Competition and the Social Entrepreneurship Competition, respectively.
Presenters pitched their business proposals in the Alumnae Lounge after submitting their applications by Jan. 23.
Dreyfus' winning project, PriceTrack, provides feedback to retailers about their consumer base and informs consumers about pricing. She received $15,000 in cash and $15,000 in in-kind services from Cummings Properties.
"Essentially, PriceTrack is a service that allows consumers to track prices of clothing online and, additionally, provides retailers with information about their consumers' behavior," Dreyfus, a junior, said.
Sieber, a senior, explained that her product, Keepin' Tabs, is a tool that synthesizes communication technology and life management in order to facilitate communication between senior citizens and their families. She received $10,000 in cash and $25,000 in in-kind services from Cummings Properties.
Sieber said an Entrepreneurial Leadership class was one of her main motivations behind her application to the competition.
"It's a web-based application, designed for a tablet that's designed for senior citizens to help them keep in touch with their younger relatives and help them manage their daily life," Sieber said. "I took [Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service] Professor Nancy Wilson's innovating social enterprises class on a whim. I've always been interested in non-profit organization and corporate social responsibility and loved it, and had a great experience."
In total, sponsors contributed about $120,000 total in cash and in-kind services, which include legal and advisory services such as office space.
"This year, we had $40,000 in cash and $80,000 in-kind which was divvied up among winners ranging from legal services, design and [The Capital Network ] services," Director of the 2012 Tufts Business Plan Competition Inge Milde said.
Runner-up prizes of the Classical Business Plan Competition were awarded to Gordon Institute graduate students Jeremy Jo, Rachel Pratt, Scott Rioux and David Tse for their proposal of a 70-decibel Whisper hair dryer.
Second place for the Social Entrepreneurship Competition was a tie between Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy students Shashank Pasrija, Ravi Kaneriya and Amogh Basavaraj for Ghazalah, an innovative transportation system, and Root to Fruit, a distributor to make food more accessible, presented by Carolyn Pace, a senior.
The criteria by which projects were judged involved the projected social impact and sustainability of the project. The competition also allows winners automatic entry into the second round of the MassChallenge, the startup competition for all of Boston.
As in previous years, the only requirement for eligibility of a team in the competition is that each team must contain one Tufts undergraduate student, graduate student or recent alumnus/a in an executive role, according to Milde.
The competition, which was judged by a panel of five judges from competitive business backgrounds, did not differ markedly from years past.
The few changes that were implemented this year were due to the departure of founder Pamela Goldberg and the expansion of the program to include more partners, such as the New England Conservatory and the Museum of Fine Arts, according to Milde. Although the competition saw fewer competitors this year due to leadership transitions, Milde anticipates that the applicant pool will grow in future years.
"Our program director Pamela Goldberg had left. She founded it and she was very instrumental in getting students involved," Milde said. "I came to oversee the continuation of it. We're going to have a new director [next year] and we can learn a lot from this year's competition and how to get the word out."
Sieber said the greatest challenges of the competition were the technical and pragmatic aspects of project developments, but she was able to overcome these initial stumbling blocks.
"It's a steep learning curve," Sieber said. "Having taken mostly history and English and film classes, I didn't know all the technicalities, but the class really helped get me started."
Dreyfus was mainly concerned that her project, which was still in its nascent stages, would be at a disadvantage compared to the more developed projects of her older peers.
"I was going against people in their mid-20's, and mine was very much more like a seed," she said. "One of the biggest challenges was just being the only one on the team.
There was a lot of self-doubt, but I learned a lot from it."
Both Dreyfus and Sieber plan to use the award money to further develop their projects. Dreyfus said she hopes to assemble a team that could further develop her project's domain name and service shape.
"I understand that the [entrepreneurial leadership minor] is one of the fastest growing minors, and I think that entering it as a career option and something worth studying about is something growing on campus. And I think that is reflective of a general trend, not just at Tufts," Milde said.
Milde discussed the changing dynamics of social entrepreneurship and the offering of similar competitions in other schools. She said the benefits reaped for participating in the competition outweigh any dismay she feels over not being a finalist.
"Each team is paired up with a mentor, faculty or alum. An exciting part of my job is who has the expertise to coach and bring businesses to the next level. Feedback alone is invaluable," Milde said.
Dreyfus and Sieber echoed Milde and said their mentors supported them tremendously throughout the process.
"I met [my mentor] a couple times and I envisioned him playing a large role in my future endeavors," Dreyfus said. "It was a solid connection that Tufts provided."
