Business Plan Competition - 2nd at Vegas!

[Captain Kirk]

Update 5/24/11
I would greatly appreciate it if y'all could be in prayer for my business plan team and I on Wednesday as we compete against 5 other teams in the TriState competition in Las Vegas. We took first in Arkansas last month (you can read below if you are not sure what i am talking about) and will compete against the second place Arkansas team, the top 2 teams from Oklahoma, and the top 2 teams from Nevada on Wednesday, May 25.

We present last out of 6 at 3:15 pm PST. Please pray that we would glorify God through our endeavors and find favor in the eyes of the judges. At stake is $25k for first place and $15k for second place.

The awards ceremony will be streamed live at arcapital.com at 6:30 pm PST and I will compete in a live elevator pitch competition (90 second spiel about our business) during that time. Another $1k is at stake in the elevator pitch competition.

Thank you for your prayers.

Kirk

(update at bottom concerning God's blessings He bestowed upon us in the form of winning all 4 categories we competed in!)

Dear friends,

Several classmates and I created a comprehensive business plan for a potential startup business as part of a senior capstone business class this last semester.  We entered a statewide business plan competition and were selected as one of 12 semi-finalists in the state of Arkansas. This Thursday, we present in Little Rock with a chance to win $20k and an additional $5k apiece in the two subcategories we were selected as finalists for (Agriculture and Innovation).

We put in 20 hours per week during the fall semester working on our 97 page plan and have spent significant time honing our presentation for this week. We have dedicated each of our meetings and our hundreds of hours spent on this project to glorifying God with the abilities He has given us and we have put forth our best efforts into this project.

We present at 8:30 am CST, 9:45 am CST (the main presentation), and 2:45 pm CST.  The finalists are announced on Thurs evening and we will present again on Friday if we are selected as finalists. I will keep y'all posted.

Please pray that God would help us to present effectively and handle question and answer time well. Also pray that if it is God's will, He would allow us to find favor in the judges' eyes and place. I know money is not everything, but I firmly believe that God rewards those who seek after Him and seek to glorify Him in their endeavors. We seek to bring Him glory through our presentation.

As I have postponed law school to pay off undergraduate loans after much deliberation and prayer, I will also look to find potential employment while I am there. Pray that God would open up doors.

Thanks and God bless,
Kirk

[Ken4Christ4ever]

I'll be praying for you guys.

[SomeKittens]

Certainly praying.  Good luck!

[Warrior_Monk]

Awesome opportunity. Will be praying.

[uthminister [BR]]

Praying man! Have a great time.

[The M]

Praying for no nerves

[Captain Kirk]

Praise the Lord!  We did very well in all three of our presentations and we were pleased with ourselves.  The judges were impressed and God was glorified.  My team, along with both other teams from my school, advanced to the finals tomorrow!  We present again at 10:45 am; this time with $20k on the line. Please continue to pray for us!

Thanks,
Kirk

[Mr.Hiatus]

You're in my prayers Kirk. I know you will do a great job. Let us know, and either way congratulations on your work so far!

[Ken4Christ4ever]

Congratulations! Glad to hear that you presented well, and we'll be praying that you do the same today.

[SomeKittens]

Great job!  You'll have to tell us what this big idea of yours is after you win.

[crustpope]

praying for you Kirk!  Hope all goes well!

[uthminister [BR]]

Awesome...I love when God is glorified like this. Way to be God's instrument Kirk!

[crustpope]

let us know how you did!

[Ken4Christ4ever]

I hope everything went well yesterday. We're all excited to hear how you did after you find out in a week and a half!

[Captain Kirk]

Thank you for all of your prayers. We presented well again on Friday and handled Q&A well, especially in light of the increased difficulty of questions. All four of us answered questions effectively and the judges were impressed by our presentation. We have put forth lots of effort and time into this project and gave it our best, the rest is up to God!

Our biggest competition should just be the other two teams from my school that also had solid presentations, but based on the Q&A time, we may have the edge over both of them. But, the judges really liked a team from U of Arkansas, which is really frustrating. The team made a plan for a BBQ restaurant that is opening at the end of April here in Fayetteville. However, the business is owned by the father of one of the girls in the competition and he is opening the restaurant and secured $400k of startup capital. The judges loved them because they are about to open and have alot of money invested in them. However, the presentation was very weak and they had a number of glaring weaknesses in the plan that the judges brought up. Nonetheless, the judges still seemed to really like them in spite of their weaknesses. Our professor believes they will place, and possibly win the whole thing based on the judges liking them. This may sound horrible, but please pray the judges select the winners fairly and see that the business is run my the parent of one of the students and the students simply made a plan for her father.

Now to wait until April 20th to find out if we placed in the main category and if we won the smaller categories!

Thanks and God bless!
Kirk

[Captain Kirk]

Praise God!  Today at the awards luncheon, I presented a 90 second elevator pitch in front of 1,200 people and beat the other 5 teams. Our team also won the Innovation and Agriculture categories, as well as the main business plan category. Two other teams from my school took 2nd and 3rd. As a result, my school swept every undergraduate award! My team won $32,000 in prizes and we will compete again on May 25 in Las Vegas against the top 2 teams from Oklahoma, Nevada, and the other JBU team that got 2nd at state. We also have had interest from several frontiers in regards to potential opportunities or investors.

Thank you all for your prayers. To God be the glory, in all the interviews with the media, we were able to praise God and have it published so that all may see God receives the praise He deserves!

You can read about it here. An article will also appear in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette tomorrow.
 http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=126569.54928.138714&page=1

Kirk

[Ken4Christ4ever]

Congratulations, Kirk! It's great to hear how you did, and that you were the only individual mentioned in the article, able to give the glory to God! I wish you the best in getting the business started.

Ken

[crustpope]

This is absolutely fantastic!  I am so proud for you Kirk!

[Warrior_Monk]

Praise God and congratulations!

[Prof Underwood]

Congrats Kirk!  I'm proud of you for winning, and even more proud of you for giving God the glory

[Captain Kirk]

Thank you everyone!

Check out this photo! http://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/2011/apr/21/95542/

Full text of article:

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/apr/21/john-brown-team-piles-awards-20110421/

John Brown team piles up awards
Meat-tenderness idea wins $33,000 in Governor’s Cup
By David Smith


LITTLE ROCK --

LITTLE ROCK — Four John Brown University students swept the undergraduate awards Wednesday at the 11th Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup business plan competition.

About 1,100 people attended the event at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

John Brown’s Agricultural Food Systems won the undergraduate division with a plan to enable meat processors to measure tenderness in raw beef carcasses. TenderID is the firm’s first product, but it hopes to have several others.

Lawson Hembree, one of the team members, said he found the idea for TenderID on the University of Arkansas technology licensing website.

“We ... were able to reach a limited-option agreement,” Hembree said. “ We’re developing plans for [Agricultural Food Systems] around that product.”

Hembree has a background in agriculture. His family has raised cattle since 1830 on an Arkansas River Valley ranch between Paris and Ozark.

The team members from the Christian college in Siloam Springs - Hembree, Kirk Dennison, Lauren Kessler and David Andrade - spent 17 to 20 hours a week working on their plan.

Agricultural Food Systemsis seeking $200,000 from an investor to get the business started. The students hope to begin operations this summer, after they have graduated.

The team also won the awards for best innovation, best agricultural idea and the “elevator pitch” competition, in which a member of each semifinal team made a 90-second presentation trying to “sell” their business to an investor. In all, the team won $33,000 of the total $108,000 awarded.

Another John Brown team, Craftistas, with a plan to sell craft kits complete with materials and instructions, finished second. Garden Craft, with a plan to offer projects to allow people to be more creative, was third.

Mike Kennelley, the faculty adviser for the John Brown teams, said he believed early on that the school had the three best business plans in the competition.

“But, of course, that doesn’t mean you always win first, second and third,” Kennelley said. “There were other very good plans [in the competition].”

Don Soderquist, former vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., was the founder of the Soderquist Business Center at John Brown.

CycleWood Solutions LLC of the University of Arkansas won the graduate division. The business has developed a biodegradable lignin-based plastic bag that breaks down in 150 days.

The students in CycleWood Solutions - Jack Avery, Kevin Oden, Nhiem Cao, Priscila Silva and Blair Cocanower - got the idea for the business from technology developed by the University of Minnesota, Cao said.

CycleWood Solutions’ bags are more environmentally friendly and would cost 1.5 cents each, compared with 1.2 cents for polyethylene plastic bags currently used, which take years to break down, Cao said.

The company is seeking $600,000 to get CycleWood Solutions started, Cao said.

TiFiber LLC of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, which provides solutions to industrial filtration, was second in the graduate category. Peas and Cues of John Brown, which provides parents with ways to teach their children a foreign language, was third in the graduate category.

CycleWood Solutions won the graduate award for best agricultural idea and the graduate-level elevator pitch competition. Jeska Shoe Co. from Southern Arkansas University, which allows women to have interchangeable heels and accessories for shoes, won the graduate award for best innovation.

First-place teams in the undergraduate and graduate categories received $20,000 each. Second place received $10,000 and third place $5,000. Faculty advisers for each of the top three teams received $1,000.

In addition, the team with the best innovation in each category won $5,000, and each team with the best agriculture idea won $5,000.

The top two teams Wednesday in the graduate and undergraduate divisions advance to the Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Awards competition in Las Vegas, where teams from Arkansas, Nevada and Oklahoma will compete for a total of $90,000.

[Daniel TS RED]

Congrats Kirk!  I'm proud of you for winning, and even more proud of you for giving God the glory

I agree 100%. Very nice job man.

[uthminister [BR]]

Our God is an awesome God and Kirk represents him well!

[Captain Kirk]

Update at top of first post about competition tomorrow.

[The M]

Still praying! Good luck!