After a year-long competition, the three winners of the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge were announced Wednesday night at the Rice Eccles Stadium Tower.
The challenge, now in its third year, allows students from every college and university in Utah to devise business plans for a new enterprise, and enter them in competition with other plans.
The three winning plans were awarded a total of $70,000 to start their new businesses.
The company Entertainment NOW! won first place and $40,000. The company would produce an ATM-sized machine that allowed consumers to burn a mix of songs or an audiobook for a fee and immediately receive it from the machine.
“I’m really excited,” said Jon Butler, a Westminster College MBA student. “I’ve really been working on this for the past 12 months. I had the idea earlier, but the technology hadn’t evolved until that point.”
Butler was the only student in the group. The other participants, consisting of Westminster faculty and business professionals, were Scott Neweth, Kelvin Willoughby, David Carter, Trevor Suelzle, Mark Bell and Steve Spencer.
Taking second place and $20,000 was the Bottling Bros. Company. The company would use a two-step production process to manufacture five gallon containers for use in foreign countries. The process allowed the first step to create condensed plastic to ship to countries where the full bottle could be manufactured, saving space and shipping costs.
“I’m very excited, I can hardly believe it because the other businesses in the competition were all excellent,” said Aaron Gutierrez, a Brigham Young University MBA student.
The three other participants, all undergraduate business students, were Brady Warr, Brannen Trost and Keith Kofoed.
Prosenjit Chatterjee took third place with his company Universal Verifiers, winning $10,000. The company would produce a technology that would allow designers to use a plug-in to verify computer programming, cutting out the time and cost of using a person to verify the coding.
“The whole experience was amazing. I now have experience in creating a business plan, and I hope to head in that direction,” said Chatterjee, a U computer science master’s student.
Chatterjee worked alone on the project.
At the awards banquet, David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue Airways Corporation, spoke about the importance of creating excellent customer service, especially for new businesses.
“I have discovered this world is filled with mediocrity, and if a business can create great customer service, customers will keep coming back,” Neeleman said.
Neeleman, who also co founded Morris Air, implemented the industry’s first electronic ticketing system and led the way for a home reservationist system that now serves as JetBlue’s unique call center, which allows people to work from home, which saves money for office space and supplies.
The challenge is completely student-run, with funds from private donors and corporations. Professionals from various business fields also provide mentoring for the participants.