The jury is still out on whether Alexis Nogueras and his teammates will be the founders of the next Wall Street darling, but a seasoned panel of entrepreneurs definitely thinks the team has a darned good shot at building a successful company.
G-Force Tools, a business plan for a landscaping tool company Nogueras and his team put together, was the graduate-level winner of the Howard J. Leonhardt New Venture Challenge (NVC) at FIU. The NVC, which is organized by the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center at FIU, draws students from different majors throughout the university who put their practical skills and their business savvy to the test.
 |
| Alexis Nogueras chats with Jonathan I. Kislak, one of the NVC judges. |
“With this competition we’re marrying the practical skills of other majors to develop products and services with business know-how,” said Alan Carsrud, executive director of the Pino Center.
The plan Nogueras and his team presented envisions designing and distributing ergonomic garden tools with a lighter shaft and a more comfortable grip. Because gardening is becoming more a recreational activity, the G-Force team figured there would be a growing market which would want tools that are easier to use.
G-Force Tools won $10,000 in cash and $5,000 in kind as seed capital for their plan.
Starting and growing the business is the goal, not winning
Carsrud said the judges look at several aspects such as how innovative the product is; whether the students have identified a viable market to sell their product; and the students’ foresight into how much money they will need to get their plan through the ramp-up phase and through the point before they start turning a profit, among other areas.
“G-Force began as a school project but morphed into a real viable business opportunity quickly instead of just a grade. Once I got approved for patent and began to develop the business plan for the competition I saw that there was a real opportunity to create this business,” Nogueras said. “Winning the prize was never the goal; starting and growing the business is the real prize and goal!”
The NVC was born in 2000 at the FIU College of Business Administration (CBA) as the Net-Biz Challenge Business Plan Competition. In 2003, the competition grew when CBA partnered with the College of Engineering and baptized the event with its current name. Then in 2004 FIU was awarded a grant from the Ewing Marion Kaufman Foundation to start an entrepreneurship center. That same year, the Pino Center led the competition and turned it into a campus-wide initiative.
“Contrary to what many people out there believe, entrepreneurship is not just the province of business majors,” said Carsrud. “Entrepreneurs tackle projects that can range from pharmaceutical laboratories to dance studios and that is the culture we’re creating here at FIU with events such as the NVC.”
Case in point, Carsrud said, is Howard J. Leonhardt, whose generous contribution has made the competition possible. Leonhardt is the founder, chairman and CEO of BioHeart, Inc., a company doing research on the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Leonhardt, who was originally a trained in cardiovascular device technology, has seven U.S. patents on cellular-based products.
“Entrepreneurs such as Leonhardt give this country an economic edge,” Carsrud said. “Some of the students entering the NVC might very well be the next Leonhardt and we hope that we can help in that process.”
 |
| Mike Anestor, 2005 undergraduate champion (far left); Hien Nguyen, ’05 graduate champion (third from right), and Alan Casrud, executive director of the Pino Center (far right), flank Phoenix Tutoring and Mentoring team members William Hatcher, Mark Sylvestre, Steven Benyard and Starex Smith (not pictured: Dwayne Caines). |
Other winners of this year’s NVC were:
- Phoenix Tutoring and Mentoring, undergraduate grand-prize ($10,000 cash and $5,000 in kind, as well as $2,500 in cash Social Entrepreneurship Prize): A non-profit organization charged with educating and mentoring urban youth, specifically in the Opa-Locka area of Miami-Dade County, by providing educational support and programs in the arts and the humanities by way of after-school and weekend programs within economically disadvantaged communities.
- Global Resource Cycle, graduate runner-up ($2,000 Cash): A non-profit organization dedicated to improving solid waste management by working with local businesses and providing them with implementation and collection assistance.
- Toesie Cozies, undergraduate runner-up ($2,000 cash): A product company that has created a pair of foot cozies made out of a disposable fiber, which can emit a fresh scent. The product is intended to compete with the conventional invisible sock/foot liners in the industry that women wear underneath their shoes.
— Jose Parra
Media Relations
-- FIU --
|