Airan Scruby
Staff Writer
Through vision and planning, a team of two full-time MBA students won $20,000 to start their own company. Two other teams received $2,500 each.
The winning team was led by Parvez Taj and Emilie Fritz. Their company, the Parvez Michel Company, was inspired by the artwork of Taj, for which he utilizes photography and computer technology.
The competition was the creative vision of two business students, Robert Stoll and Jason Nazar, who were co-chairs in the first annual Business Plan Competition. It is their hope that the event will continue annually through the Graziadio School of Business and Management.
“As this happens over the next five or ten years, there will be scores of Pepperdine businesses in the business world as a result of this program,” Nazar said.
Twenty-seven teams submitted business plans, and Pepperdine faculty and alumni were enlisted to narrow the group to three outstanding teams. These three teams were then evaluated by a panel of judges, all of whom had extensive experience in the business world.
The teams presented their business plans to the panel of judges, given 20 minutes for a presentation, and 20 minutes for questions. The winner was announced later that evening at a special reception.
Taj and Fritz’s concept emphasized flexibility; Parvez Michel is a company without inventory, with the ability to customize an affordable product, and ship it to retailers, thereby bypassing many of the costly and time-consuming problems of the current art world.
Taj and Fritz plan to do to the world of wall art and home decorating what the Gap did to fashion. By emphasizing the brand-name status and playing up their position as first on the market, the plan to make ‘fashionable’ art affordable.
The team was a crowd favorite during presentations on Tuesday morning, though many of the judges raised concerns about various aspects of their business strategy. However, the panel was ultimately impressed by their work, calling their group “the most focused.”
They were also confident in the management team, and felt that Parvez Michel was the safest business venture because of the very low start-up cost projected for the company.
The final teams also included Lance Bao, with his colleagues Dr. Jing Zhou and Cindy Liu. Bao is a fully employed MBA student. Their business plan was Netspread, a company that produced software that could operate on a collaboration platform (in other words, which would allow a group in many locations to simultaneously work on one project).
Also in the finals was Rachel Orrico, a senior at Seaver College, and her team, which included Michael Chiarelli and Marian Morris. Her business plan centered on La Vita, a ‘gourmet culinary boutique,’ which could include a five-star restaurant and a specialty grocery store.
Instrumental in their business model was the commodity seldom provided in the current market: a ‘third space’ environment where the store’s patrons can relax and socialize.
Matt Toledo, member of the Graziadio School Board of Visitors and Publisher of the Los Angeles Business Journal, spoke at the event.
“I think the spirit of George Graziadio is here,” he said. “I think he’d want to say, ‘Let’s double down and make it $50,000.’”
To the competitors, he said, “If you ultimately take home the prize today … stay focused on your career and dreams in the future.”
Dr. Andrew K. Benton, Pepperdine president, also spoke, and thanked the participants and judges for their confidence in Pepperdine’s business program.
Stoll and Nazar spoke about their vision for the event and led the morning’s competition. Both were pleased with the success of the event.
“Our biggest challenge has been keeping up with the flood of great business ideas,” Stoll said.
Nazar added, “It is the culmination of over a year of planning.” Nazar said that his vision came from the students he already found at Pepperdine when he arrived.
“There was an incredible group of entrepreneurial students at school when I got here,” he said.
02-24-2005