After putting in an estimated 1,000 hours of work creating a business plan, Greg Ackerman and his partner, Peter King, won $25,000 in the Panasci Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Ackerman, a graduate student in the entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises program, has been working since September 2007 on his business, called BSApp.

The business, which began as part of Whitman’s capstone course, will create a standardized MBA Web application that multiple business graduate schools can use – similar to the common application for undergraduate colleges and universities.

The final round of the Panasci Competition began Saturday night in Whitman’s Lender Auditorium, as five teams vied to take home a portion of the $40,000 prize. The final round consisted of the five teams’ 20-minute business proposals, followed with a 20-minute question and answer session conducted by the judges. This year, 104 teams entered the competition and created business proposals.

‘We had an extraordinary group of passionate finalists this year,’ said Larry Bennett, an assistant professor in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises and the faculty coordinator for the competition. Bennett said he worked with about 90 percent of the finalists. ‘It was amazing to see how far they progressed,’ he said. ‘And they just did a stellar job.’

A group of entrepreneurs and business professionals served as the judges on the panel judging the students’ work. David Panasci, the son of the man who donated $1,000,000 to the competition, served on the panel of judges.

The plans were judged by the formulations within their business plan, how well the students established the size of their market and an understanding of how their plans would be accomplished, Bennett said. The judges then decided if the companies appeared to be attractive opportunities that investors would choose.

Ackerman said his winning plan is underway. The programming for the Web site is about 50 percent complete. Ackerman and King plan to use their $25,000 prize to finish developing the software and market the application to universities.

Brand-yourself.com placed second in the competition and won $10,000. Pete Kistler, Robert Sherman and Trace Cohen started planning Brand-yourself.com 18 months ago. The Web site is designed to help students build personal and professional Web sites, Bennett said. The team also won an award at the Kairos Summit last month, where the Kairos Society named them one of the Top 100 Most Innovative Student Companies.

Food 2 Joules, the third place team, is a group with students majoring in business, engineering and sciences. The team’s plan was an anaerobic digester, which uses organic waste to create fertilizer instead of dumping into landfills. The team won $5,000.

Let Us Fish, a semi-finalist team consisting of environmental science students, have full intentions in going ahead with their business plans, even though they did not make it to the finals, Bennett said. The team won the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship- Director’s Award, given to the team with the most passion for their organization or business at the awards ceremony.

‘With the competition, we are trying to develop programming to support students in their first three years. If they have the passion and stay with it, they can achieve success,’ Bennett said. At least two of this year’s five finalists participated in the Panasci competition in previous years.

Bennett said the best part of the competition is planning for the proposal and the preparation leading up to the final competition. ‘It is recognizing, identifying and capitalizing on emerging enterprises, which are used in personal life as well as business life.’

rltoback@syr.edu

Published on April 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm