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Rachel Finley
574 TNRB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-3598
prspecialist@byu.edu

Zinch Wins 2007 E-Business Category of the Business Plan Competition

Zinch recently won $5,000 in prize money in the e-business category of Brigham Young University’s Business Plan Competition, sponsored by the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for eBusiness.

Co-founded by BYU senior Brad Hagen, Zinch allows high school students to create their own online in-depth profiles targeted to admissions officers in colleges and universities around the nation.

John Richards, managing director of the eBusiness center, believes Zinch was the best overall entry in the competition.

“Zinch is an obviously strong contender in university-based business plan competitions,” Richards says. “Its quality is on par with the best seen in the real venture world.”

Zinch allows students to post information about their jobs, internships, extracurricular activities, academics, class rank, and family situation to increase their chance of admission to an institution of higher education. Another feature of Zinch is the Z-Folio, where students can showcase their writing, art, sports highlights, and music. The Hodge-Podge section displays favorite books, movies, and music. These areas of the profile allow students to personalize themselves to college recruiters.

In addition to giving students the chance to stand out, Zinch also makes the college admissions process easier for universities.

“We will have subscription fees for colleges that use our site to recruit,” Brad Hagen says. “It will be absolutely free to every student in America. Our information will be very comprehensive and will allow colleges to recruit based on more than test scores. Through the talents and passions displayed by students, colleges will be able to recruit more holistically.”

Zinch has profiles on colleges and universities throughout America. In the Shout Out section, a student can place a school on their list, which will send a notice to admissions officers at that school to check his or her Zinch profile.

Hagen says that Zinch, so far, has been a successful business.

“In two months we’ve gained over one hundred thousand users,” Hagen says. “We have students from all fifty states, we are in over twelve thousand high schools, and we have over eighty countries represented. Hundreds of colleges are knocking on our door, but we aren’t releasing them access until mid June. It’s been amazing to see students grab this idea and run with it. We get thousands of new users every day.”

In addition to winning the e-business category of the BPC and its recent success with students across the nation, Zinch also won first place at the Utah Entrepreneur (UE) Challenge, a program that helps promote entrepreneurship among college students.

“We had over one hundred submissions to the UE challenge this year,” says UE Challenge Director Leonard Black. “[Zinch] was right up there as one of the best. Their business plan was well written and well organized. That is what makes the winner. It is not only that they come up with the plan, but also their ability to demonstrate their understanding of the market. That is what really sets Zinch apart.”

Hagen says placing first in the e-business category of the BPC and in the UE Challenge helped the student team at Zinch to grow as a stronger company.

“I think it helped in the fact that people started to recognize the name,” Hagen says. “More people wanted to get involved and help with an exciting new company that is out to make a change in the college admissions process. We definitely grew from these competitions as we were able to get feedback from a lot of great Utah business leaders. Some feedback we agreed with and some we disagreed with. But putting our idea out there in the refiner’s fire definitely helps you grow.”