Six student businesses including a laundry/storage service, custom women’s clothing, a business forecasting tool, web-based collection software, learning software, and mobile phone applications —selected from more than 200 business plans—will participate in the final round of the Babson College Business Plan Competitions during the school’s “Celebrating Student Venturing” day on Thursday, April 16, 2009.
Babson founded the very first college business plan competition in 1984. Today awards are almost $100,000 in cash and services in kind.
The finalists are:
Lazybones--delivers laundry, dry cleaning, and storage services to college students, currently generates more than $1.2 million a year in revenues and 20 percent net profit margins. Lazybones plans to achieve explosive growth by franchising the business, increasing its revenues tenfold during the next five years. www.lazybones.net
K. Guillard – Custom Apparel for Every Unique Woman--a lifestyle clothing company that provides women with the ability to purchase high-quality, custom-fitting, and fashionable apparel in a convenient shopping experience.
GroupGuess-- delivers a forecasting tool for businesses to plan ahead of time by aggregating knowledge, simply by asking their community (employees, suppliers, or customers) with a small incentive. GroupGuess provides a tool to tap the “Wisdom of Crowds” with a carrot. www.groupguess.com
EasyDues-- provides Web-based dues collection software for fraternities, sororities,
and social organizations. www.easydues.com
Alight Learning-- is a software tool that stimulates personalized student learning in middle schools by integrating the most effective communication, collaboration, and holistic assessment tools. Alight hopes to be an engaging academic experience that encourages student discovery and enables the personalization of learning for all members of the learning community including students, teachers, and parents. www.alightlearning.com
Applico LLC provides smartphone users with functional mobile applications. Applico’s NYC Transit mobile application gives users public transportation schedule information for the New York metropolitan area within just a few clicks, and no Internet connection is required. www.applicollc.com
Lazybones, K. Guillard-Custom Apparel for Every Unique Woman, and GroupGuess are participants in the Douglass Foundation Graduate Entrepreneurial Prizes Competition. EasyDues, Alight Learning, and Applico LLC are participants in the John H. Muller, Jr. Undergraduate Business Plan Prizes Competition. For more information visit: http://www3.babson.edu/ESHIP/outreach-events/bplancompetitions.cfm
The Douglass Foundation Graduate Business Plan Competition (Olin Auditorium)
The John H. Muller Jr. Undergraduate Business Plan Competition (Needham/Wellesley)
10:15–11:30 a.m.
Olin Hall
This year’s competition is sponsored by Pepper Hamilton and VistaPrint. Pepper Hamilton LLP is a multipractice law firm with more than 500 lawyers in seven states and the District of Columbia. The firm provides corporate, litigation, and regulatory legal services to leading businesses, governmental entities, nonprofit organizations, and individuals throughout the nation and the world. The firm was founded in 1890. VistaPrint, the small business marketing company that provides products like business cards, postcards, checks, and rubber stamps to small businesses and consumers.
