With a prize of $15,000 at stake, business attire-clad contestants surrounded a podium Thursday at the Anderson School of Management, anxiously awaiting the first-place prize results.
In its 29th year, the Knapp Venture Competition, a student-run Anderson competition that simulates the experience of starting a business by requiring students to develop and market their own company, made an unprecedented announcement ““ there was a tie.
CytoScale and L.A. Burger, two of the five finalists, each received an $11,250 first-place prize in the competition, and L.A. Burger won an additional $2,000 for the people’s choice award.
“I couldn’t be happier to be sharing (first place) with them. Everybody worked very hard,” said Kumar Duraiswamy, a CytoScale member who is working toward a master’s of business administration.
The team CytoScale is named after a diagnostic device that captures viable circulating tumor cells. The device was created by a scientist at the California Nanosystems Institute.
In partnership with the scientist, CytoScale developed a business plan for the competition that marketed the device with the larger goal of commercializing the work done by researchers, Duraiswamy said.
Going in a different direction from CytoScale, L.A. Burger’s business plan was an American restaurant chain for the French market.
A French-American team member developed the concept after he realized the lack of any real American burger restaurants in France, which happens to be the second most-popular market for McDonald’s after the U.S., said Nadine Katkhouda, an L.A. Burger member who is working toward a master’s of business administration.
The competition began in January when 37 groups, comprised entirely of Anderson students, developed business plans that were later reviewed by student judges, said Knapp Competition coordinator Tommy Gaeta, who is also studying for a master’s of business administration.
From there, 23 teams were chosen to go onto the Knapp semifinals in April. At the semifinals, judges narrowed the competitors down to five teams that would continue onto the finals.
The five teams included business plans for a company that developed calcium mints, a business specializing in digital overlay projection technology, and a company focusing on the travel market.
“The big takeaway from this competition is the breadth of what was done,” Gaeta said. “(Anderson) is not just a biotech school or just a culinary institute or a software school. People with all kinds of backgrounds and ideas come here and try to hatch them.”
The panel of judges at the finals, comprised of Los Angeles venture capitalists and members of the private equity community, voted based on the presentation and content of each business plan.
Both winners took different approaches to presenting. L.A. Burger had a flashier presentation where it provided the judges with real hamburgers while CytoScale had a more technical presentation; nevertheless, both presentations made choosing a first-place winner a difficult process for the judges, said competition sponsor Bud Knapp in a speech.
“It’s easy to imagine France and hamburgers. That image is really easy to see, but the little tendrils coming out of a cancer cell being picked up by Velcro means is obscure and difficult to conceive of,” Knapp said in a speech. “Both groups did a hell of a job presenting their case, and through it all, no matter what the style, the judges understood what was intending to be made.”
The contest frequently provides students with the experience to start their own business ventures just a few years after competing, Gaeta said.
With a portion of its prize money, L.A. Burger intends to further develop and market its product, as well as reach out to more investors, in order to turn its business plan into a reality.
“We are a risky business. We are a restaurant, so we never thought we had that much of a chance. But we had a strong team and I realized that’s what is most important ““ and a lot of passion,” Katkhouda said.