For Immediate Release
Contact:
Holly
Preston
PR/Marketing
Coordinator
Neeley
School of Business
(817)
257-7768
TCU Students Take Home Top Prize at Tulane University Business Plan Competition
FORT
WORTH, Texas (April 7, 2005) Three students from the Neeley Entrepreneurship
Program at TCU garnered the top prize in the undergraduate division of the
Tulane University Business Plan Competition last week in New Orleans. The
winning business plan for DJ Web, an Internet venture that links disc jockeys
with prospective customers, was presented by Mike Miller, Jason Ruth, and
Justin ³Red² Sanders.
Miller,
Ruth, and Sanders faced more than 20 teams at the competition, and the team
took home a $1,000 cash prize, as well as free advertising, business
development software, and admission to an entrepreneurial training program. The
competition gave teams 45 minutes to present complete business plans to an eight-judge
panel and face questions from the panel regarding details and possible problems
with their business strategy.
According
to David Minor, director of the nationally-recognized Neeley Entrepreneurship
Program at TCU, the winning team exemplifies the type of entrepreneurial
students now at TCU. ³Weıre particularly excited because this team is made up
of existing student entrepreneurs who are engaged in real businesses,² says
Minor. ³Oftentimes business plan competitions are simply academic exercises. DJ
Web, however, is the real deal and we are anxious to see this business develop
over time.²
The
winning TCU team will be recognized at the Venture Capital Forum dinner in New
Orleans on April 14th, where they will receive an award for their
winning business plan. Louis Stripling, Assistant Director of the Neeley
Entrepreneurship Program and the teamıs coach, says that the team learned some
important lessons during the competition. ³Equally important to winning the
competition were the comments from several judges who said that this plan
represented a real opportunity and will likely secure funding to make the
company a reality,² says Stripling. ³Thatıs why you create business plans not
just to win a competition, but to create a company.²
About the TCU Entrepreneurship
Program
The entrepreneurship program
of the M. J. Neeley School of Business is ranked in the top two percent in the
nation by Entrepreneur magazine
and is listed among the Top 20 undergraduate entrepreneurship programs in
America by U.S. News & World Report magazine. In 2003, the
program's Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) Club was named the best
chapter in the country, and in 2004, the chapter received a second place award
for best student-run website and was the recipient of the E-Diffusion Award,
which recognizes the CEO chapter that has done the best job of recruiting and
creating programs for students who are not in the business school. Additionally, NASDAQ recognized the
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the M.J. Neeley School of Business at TCU
as a ³Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence,² one of only three in the country
to be honored with that distinction in 2003. Undergraduates can major in
entrepreneurial management, and graduate students can earn a concentration in entrepreneurship.
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