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Rachel Finley
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Brigham Young University
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prspecialist@byu.edu

eTake Wins First-Ever Web Business Idea Competition

eTake, an idea to revolutionize the way people ship packages, is the brain child of MBA student Matt Pickard. His idea won first place in the first inaugural Web Business Idea Competition (WEBIC), sponsored by the Rollins Center for eBusiness.

Pickard won $3,000 for his efforts and also walked away with the Audience Choice Award.

“The advice I got from my mentor was to be enthusiastic, and it seems to have paid off,” Pickard says.

Evhret Milham, Dan Posner, and Nate Graves won second place and a $2,000 for their idea, Stream My Music, a site where people can upload their music and stream it from anywhere on their device of choice.

Angela Chau, an information technology major, took home third place and received $1,000 for her idea, Virtual Team Builder, an online social networking site where people from around the world can build a team of professionals to meet the needs of the task at hand.

Chau was referred to the competition by her fiancé, John Chin, who also entered WEBIC.

“I wasn’t expecting to win the competition,” she says. “I only entered because John referred me. I am an IT major, so I think of technology-related ideas all the time, but I rarely think of how to make an idea profitable.”

WEBIC, a competition that started in early October, was designed to find the next big web-based business, like Google or Facebook. The event was inspired by Kevin Rollins, former CEO of Dell Inc. and founding donor of the eBusiness Center, who wanted the next big online venture to come out of BYU instead of Harvard or Stanford.

Students were allowed to submit as many web business ideas as they desired through the WEBIC web site. More than 175 ideas were submitted. From there, thirty were selected for the second round and finally four were chosen as finalists.

“You can imagine what a difficult decision it was for our judging panels,” says Sandino Roman, student lead of WEBIC. “Even the top thirty ideas in the second round had the potential to become successful businesses.”

WEBIC also caught the attention of many Utah business leaders who participated in the competition as judges.

“I am impressed with WEBIC and think it is a very worthy cause,” says Ryan Caldwell, a successful local entrepreneur. “I wish more of this was around when I was in school.”

With this year’s competition being such a huge success, the Rollins Center plans to sponsor WEBIC again in fall 2008. Roman says students interested in next year’s competition should begin developing their ideas now.

“I would strongly recommend all students to start thinking outside-the-box, to frequently spend time brainstorming and researching their ideas, and to start testing them as much as possible before next year’s competition,” Roman says. “We thank all who participated in the competition this year and plan to make next year’s competition even bigger and more successful.”