$31,000 in Prizes at BYU Student Entrepreneur of the Year Competition

Kevin Willeitner, one of my BYU Internet Marketing students asked me to blog this:

Student entrepreneurs now have their change to win a little money to put into their business. The Collegiate Entrepreneurs\’ Organization of BYU is now accepting applications for the 2006 Student Entrepreneur of the Year. So far, they are planning to give out a total of $31,000 to the winners with $12,500 going to first place. Contestant get prizes all the way down to 12th place, so the chances of winning something are quite good. Last years winner was Jayson Edwards of J-Dawg\’s (a small hot dog shack on the edge of the BYU campus.)

Here is the official BYU Student Entrepreneur of the Year website.

Other previous winners include Adam Edmunds (CEO of Allegiance), Dave Bateman (CEO of Property Solutions), and Jonathan Coons (CEO of 1-800-Contacts). All of experiencing great success in their businesses.

Business competitions like this are a great way to get publicity which can be leveraged in a variety of ways to help your company succeed. The cash prizes don\’t hurt either!

I read recently that in the 1970s there were something like 20 university entrepreneurship programs in the U.S. Now there are something like 2,000. Many of them have business plan competitions these days. I wish there were a central directory of these competitions. Here\’s an incomplete one.

I know our team at FundingUniverse.com is interested in making sure that the winners of business plan competitions and the winners of Entrepreneur of the Year competitions like this one get a chance to meet with local angel investors when the time is right for them to raise capital for their business.

This one will be fun to watch, because I\’m sure I\’ll know quite a few of the students who will be in the running.