RICH MCCARTY RETIRING Rich McCarty, a decorated US Marine, faculty member and entrepreneur, retired from teaching full-time from JPEC in May. Many students had the opportunity to take a class from Rich, or counsel with him about an entrepreneurial challenge. For more than a decade, Rich inspired students to believe they could run their own business saying, “If I can do it, you can too, and I am the one to help you get where you are going.” Everyone at JPEC will miss seeing Rich and sharing a funny story. While Las Vegas is now home to Rich, lucky students will still be able to connect online for class with the 2013-2014 Tippie College of Business, Edith Ennis Award winning faculty, Rich McCarty. ZAC VOSS: DES MOINES REGISTER 14 PEOPLE TO WATCH IN 2014 Transforming Grays Lake and Water Works Parks, 1,500 acres connected to downtown Des Moines is a major undertaking, and Zac wants to create one of the best parks in the country. “I spend a lot of time in parks as a father of two children. As I child, I spent time on the bike trails with my Dad, so when I heard about the transformational plans for Water Works Park, I got excited and involved,” said Zac Voss (Finance, ’00, JPEC Alumni Board, and President of Water Works Foundation). “This project will transform a �lood plain into a park and preserve while educating people about clean water (water now provided to half a million residents). There are a lot of parks in �lood plains, and this project could help people all over the state of Iowa,” he said. To read about the plan visit: http://waterworkscircuit.com/process/ The Merle Volding Business Model Competition attracted UI graduate and undergraduate teams who presented their business plans to a panel of judges for a chance at $22,500 in total seed grants. Judges awarded 10 companies based on the content of their plan, viability of their plan, and intent to pursue. The top winning businesses included $5,000 prize winner, Real Property Intelligence; $3,000 prize winner, SLEAK Sheath; and $2,500 winner, Edible Innovations. These three companies were also selected to advance to the Pappajohn New Venture Business Plan Competition, where Edible Innovations and Real Property Intelligence earned an additional $5,000 as winners of the statewide competition. Last year, Merle Volding was one of 30 WWII veterans taken to Washington D.C. through the Rocky Mountain Honor Flight organization. Volding is a retired JPEC Advisory Board Member and the Founder of BancTec Inc. VOLDING BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION WINNERS MERLE VOLDING HONOR FLIGHT eVENTURING SUMMER 2014 BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION The Business Model Competition (BMC) is based on a new way of thinking about the entrepreneurship process. This competition allows participants to identify and test their business assumptions early in order to make changes to their ideas so that the end result is fail-proof. Participants provided a brief overview of their startup’s story from the initial idea to the current stage of the startup. The UI BMC is an official qualifier for the International BMC. This year Iowa Adaptive Technologies won an additional $5,000 and advanced to the semi-final round at the IBMC hosted at BYU in May. BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION WINNERS 1st Place: $11,000 each • pxAlpha (Blake Dirksen, UI Faculty; Ryan Flynn, UI Faculty) • Systems Prognostic, LLC (Bruce Ayati, UI Faculty) 2nd Place: $8,500 each • Iowa Adaptive Technologies: (Ben Berkowitz, UI Graduate; Richard Hurtig, UI Faculty) 3rd Place: $5,000 each • Blo2dWorks: (Samantha Miller, UI Graduate; Eric Dinges, UI Undergraduate; Ellen Gardner, UI Undergraduate; Kevin Johnson, UI Undergraduate; Elizabeth Winter, UI Undergraduate) 4th Place: $3,500 each • Translacare: (Ryan Ries, UI Undergraduate) • Imblim: (Anna Bruno, UI Graduate) • Okara Food Company: (Hannah Johnson, UI Undergraduate; Matt Mesaros, UI Undergraduate; Joshua Draves-Kellerman, UI Undergraduate; Jake Gratzon, UI Undergraduate) • Safe Place: (Kelsey Smithart, UI Graduate; Lauren Aguilar, UI Undergraduate) • Widespread Threads: (Jerid Schumacher, UI Undergraduate; Taylor Grote, UI Undergraduate) 5th Place: $2,500 each • Real Property Intelligence: (John Nicholson, UI Graduate) • Syruption: (Carter Yerkes, UI Undergraduate; Noah Kirschbaum, UI Undergraduate; Tyler Lubbs, UI Undergraduate) • Boomer Network: (Arabella Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate; Maximilian Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate) • Edible Innovations: (Ruihao Min, UI Undergraduate) 6th Place: $1,000 each • Spectator: (Jon Myers, UI Undergraduate; JD McCollough, UI Undergraduate; Brandon Keifer, UI Undergraduate) • Launch Services: (Gerald Redlinger, UI Undergraduate; Luke Haverkamp, UI Undergraduate) • Boomer Network: (Arabella Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate; Maximilian Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate) • Edible Innovations: (Ruihao Min, UI Undergraduate) “The hub of all excitement is clearly the University of Iowa,” Bob Dorf, co-author of The Startup Owner’s Manual, stated in his blog after spending three days on the UI campus last month. Over 300 students, faculty, staff, and alumni listened to Dorf share his entrepreneurial story during his keynote presentation at the University’s second annual Hawkeye Innovation Summit. His talk primarily centered on the importance of the customer discovery method for startups, which he and co-author, Steve Blank, cover extensively in their book. He also spoke on how passion is the key to success, and while failure often occurs, entrepreneurs gain valuable experience from those failures that get them even closer to actualizing their dreams. In addition to the Summit, Dorf led two LeanLaunchPad workshops while he was here; one directed towards educators and the other towards corporations. Both workshops covered the essentials of the business model canvas and went in-depth on the customer discovery methodology. Educators learned how they could apply these concepts in their classrooms, while corporate leaders learned how they could inject these methods into their workplace to better encourage an innovative environment. ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM - UI JPEC