Nineteen teams compete for business start-up money

Nineteen teams compete for business start-up moneyApril 09, 2003Cynthia J. Moritzcjmoritz@syr.edu

Judges have whittled a record field of 67 entrants down to 15 remaining teams in the fourth annual Syracuse University Business Plan Competition. The remaining teams will compete for $40,000 in prize money on April 11 and 12. The winners will receive $25,000, the second-place team will receive $10,000 and the third-place team will receive $5,000.

SU graduate and undergraduate students from every school and college compete by creating growth business models with hopes of obtaining “seed” or start-up money for their ventures.

“Entries have more than tripled this year,” says Michael H. Morris, Witting Chair in Entrepreneurship and executive director of EEE. “The ideas are innovative and the teams are energetic. For them, this is not an academic exercise. It’s about changing the world in their own small ways.”

The competition was created by a gift of $1 million from Henry A. Panasci Jr., chair of Cygnus Management Group, a Syracuse-based venture capital and management consulting firm. He was a co-founder and CEO of Syracuse-based Fay’s Inc. until 1996, when it was sold to a national retail chain. Additional corporate sponsors of the competition include the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck, & King, PLLC, and the accounting firm Ernst and Young LLP.

Entries are judged on the innovation, viability, and quality and comprehensiveness of written plans and oral presentations. Judging is based on the creation of an innovative business model

Morris notes, “We want this year’s finals to be a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit at SU. The huge level of interest in the competition lets us know that this spirit is alive and well on the campus. It reinforces our belief that entrepreneurship is a concept that has relevance for every student, no matter what their major or career direction is.”

Final plan presentations will be made April 12 at 9 a.m. in the School of Management’s Schoepflin Auditorium; the winner will be announced at a luncheon later that day.