Auburn's Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club is bringing accessibility and structure to students with business ideas.
The AU Start-Up Challenge is for any Auburn student or Auburn graduate since 2010 that has an idea he or she wants to create a business from, said Clint Jarvis, president of Auburn's Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club.
"It's just a way to give people an actual route," Jarvis said. "Everybody has ideas, especially in the business school, and everybody wants to have or start their own company, so this is a way to give them a structure to make it happen."
Participants will form teams of up to three people to compete.
"We're trying not to have the teams get too big, so they don't lose focus," Jarvis said. Three judges will vote on each team's business, which can include ideas ranging from apps to manufactured products.
One of the judges will be Jim Corman, founder of the Auburn Angel Network, entrepreneur investors.
The first-place winner will receive $3,000, followed by $1,000 for second place. Both first-and-second-place winners will also receive a place in the Auburn Business Incubator.
John D. Weete, professor and assistant vice president for Technology Transfer and Communications, said Auburn's business incubator, which helps young, start-up and early-stage businesses be successful, will play a big role in the challenge.
"Along with the prizes, we will provide space and services in the incubator for students to become successful," Weete said. "We want to get more students involved in entrepreneurship and dealing with real-life businesses."
The incubator is also available to any Auburn students looking for guidance with their business, said Doug Warrington, director of business development for the Office of Technology Transfer.
"Every student at Auburn who is interested in starting a business and is serious enough to go out and do what is necessary to do that, we would like to talk to them," Warrington said.
Along with providing mentors in the competition, students can look to the incubator for help starting their businesses after the challenge is over.
"There are spaces available now for students to buy into at the incubator," Warrington said. "You can rent spaces in the incubator just like the other commercial businesses."
This is the first year the AU Start-Up Challenge is taking place at Auburn.
"In the past, there really hasn't been any start-up community," Jarvis said. "We want the kids on campus to understand that there are resources on campus to take their idea and make it into a business."
The past business competitions at Auburn had all surrounded theoretical businesses, Warrington said.
"In the past we were only looking for business plans, but through the efforts of the incubator we are now looking for real businesses," Warrington said. "A lot of the students who showed up for the first information session had ideas for businesses already."
The goal of this challenge is to bring students from all different colleges on campus together, Weete said.
"For example, you may have a student who has an idea about an app, but that person doesn't have the computer skills to develop that app," Weete said. "So you match up a computer science person with a business or idea person and you begin to build a business."
Auburn's Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club stresses the same goal of diversity in its club.
"My favorite part of the club is, for example, usually engineering students are their own way and business students are their own way, so they would never necessarily hang out on their own," said Milton Trevino, club vice president. "This is a chance for both to come together. We have a lot of social events where we just relax and go get some pizza and make friends with people that think a lot differently than you, but find that you actually have a lot in common."
Through joint efforts of the Auburn Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club and Auburn's Business Incubator, Auburn students will have various resources to chose from when searching for ways to start a business, even after the challenge ends.
"After the competition, they get the ribbon," Jarvis said. "They get the money, but now what do they do? They can go to the incubator and actually get their business started."
To check out more information on the AU Start-Up Challenge visit AUStartUpChallenge.org
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