RICH MCCARTY RETIRINGRich McCarty, a decorated US Marine, faculty member and entrepreneur, retired from teaching full-time from JPEC in May. Many students had the opportunity to take a class from Rich, or counsel with him about an entrepreneurial challenge. For more than a decade, Rich inspired students to believe they could run their own business saying, “If I can do it, you can too, and I am the one to help you get where you are going.” Everyone at JPEC will miss seeing Rich and sharing a funny story. While Las Vegas is now home to Rich, lucky students will still be able to connect online for class with the 2013-2014 Tippie College of Business, Edith Ennis Award winning faculty, Rich McCarty.

ZAC VOSS: DES MOINES REGISTER 14 PEOPLE TO WATCH IN 2014Transforming Grays Lake and Water Works Parks, 1,500 acres connected to downtown Des Moines is a major undertaking, and Zac wants to create one of the best parks in the country. “I spend

a lot of time in parks as a father of two children. As I child, I spent time on the bike trails with my Dad, so when I heard about the transformational plans for Water Works Park, I got excited and involved,” said Zac Voss (Finance, ’00, JPEC Alumni Board, and President of Water Works Foundation). “This project will transform a �lood plain into a park and preserve while educating people about clean water (water now provided to half a million residents). There are a lot of parks in �lood plains, and this project could help people all over the state of Iowa,” he said. To read about the plan visit: http://waterworkscircuit.com/process/

The Merle Volding Business Model

Competition attracted UI graduate and

undergraduate teams who presented their

business plans to a panel of judges for a

chance at $22,500 in total seed grants.

Judges awarded 10 companies based on

the content of their plan, viability of their

plan, and intent to pursue. The top winning

businesses included $5,000 prize winner, Real

Property Intelligence; $3,000 prize winner,

SLEAK Sheath; and $2,500 winner, Edible

Innovations. These three companies were

also selected to advance to the Pappajohn

New Venture Business Plan Competition,

where Edible Innovations and Real Property

Intelligence earned an additional $5,000 as

winners of the statewide competition.

Last year, Merle

Volding was

one of 30 WWII

veterans taken to

Washington D.C.

through the Rocky

Mountain Honor

Flight organization. Volding is a retired JPEC

Advisory Board Member and the Founder of

BancTec Inc.

VOLDING BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION WINNERS

MERLE VOLDING HONOR FLIGHT

eVENTURINGSUMMER 2014

BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION The Business Model Competition (BMC) is based on a new

way of thinking about the entrepreneurship process. This

competition allows participants to identify and test their

business assumptions early in order to make changes to their

ideas so that the end result is fail-proof. Participants provided

a brief overview of their startup’s story from the initial idea to

the current stage of the startup. The UI BMC is an offi cial qualifi er

for the International BMC. This year Iowa Adaptive Technologies

won an additional $5,000 and advanced to the semi-fi nal round

at the IBMC hosted at BYU in May.

BUSINESS MODEL COMPETITION WINNERS

1st Place: $11,000 each• pxAlpha (Blake Dirksen, UI Faculty; Ryan Flynn, UI Faculty)• Systems Prognostic, LLC (Bruce Ayati, UI Faculty)

2nd Place: $8,500 each• Iowa Adaptive Technologies: (Ben Berkowitz, UI Graduate; Richard Hurtig,

UI Faculty)

3rd Place: $5,000 each• Blo2dWorks: (Samantha Miller, UI Graduate; Eric Dinges, UI Undergraduate;

Ellen Gardner, UI Undergraduate; Kevin Johnson, UI Undergraduate; Elizabeth Winter, UI Undergraduate)

4th Place: $3,500 each• Translacare: (Ryan Ries, UI Undergraduate)• Imblim: (Anna Bruno, UI Graduate)• Okara Food Company: (Hannah Johnson, UI Undergraduate; Matt Mesaros,

UI Undergraduate; Joshua Draves-Kellerman, UI Undergraduate; Jake Gratzon, UI Undergraduate)

• Safe Place: (Kelsey Smithart, UI Graduate; Lauren Aguilar, UI Undergraduate)• Widespread Threads: (Jerid Schumacher, UI Undergraduate; Taylor Grote,

UI Undergraduate)

5th Place: $2,500 each• Real Property Intelligence: (John Nicholson, UI Graduate)• Syruption: (Carter Yerkes, UI Undergraduate; Noah Kirschbaum,

UI Undergraduate; Tyler Lubbs, UI Undergraduate)• Boomer Network: (Arabella Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate; Maximilian

Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate) • Edible Innovations: (Ruihao Min, UI Undergraduate)

6th Place: $1,000 each• Spectator: (Jon Myers, UI Undergraduate; JD McCollough, UI Undergraduate;

Brandon Keifer, UI Undergraduate)• Launch Services: (Gerald Redlinger, UI Undergraduate; Luke Haverkamp,

UI Undergraduate)• Boomer Network: (Arabella Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate; Maximilian

Franze-Soeln, UI Undergraduate) • Edible Innovations: (Ruihao Min, UI Undergraduate)

“The hub of all excitement is clearly the University of Iowa,” Bob Dorf, co-author of The Startup Owner’s Manual, stated in his blog after spending three days on the UI campus last month. Over 300 students, faculty, staff, and alumni listened to Dorf share his entrepreneurial story during his keynote presentation at the University’s second annual Hawkeye Innovation Summit. His talk primarily centered on the importance of the customer discovery method for startups, which he and co-author, Steve Blank, cover extensively in their book. He also spoke on how passion is the key to success, and while failure often occurs, entrepreneurs gain valuable experience from those

failures that get them even closer to actualizing their dreams.

In addition to the Summit, Dorf led two LeanLaunchPad workshops while he was here; one directed towards educators and the other towards corporations. Both workshops covered the essentials of the business model canvas and went in-depth on the customer discovery methodology. Educators learned how they could apply these concepts in their classrooms, while corporate leaders learned how they could inject these methods into their workplace to better encourage an innovative environment.

ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM - UI JPEC

THREE DAY STARTUP Thirty-�ive entrepreneurial students were selected to participate with an all-star group of mentors in the �irst 3-Day Startup (3DS) held in Iowa City, May 2-4. The goal: To develop a new venture that would “truly solve a real customer’s need or make something customers want,” according to Maia Donohue, program manager at 3DS complete with feedback from customers and stakeholders.

Seven teams were formed to work on the top voted business ideas, primarily focusing on customer discovery and product development. They tweaked their plans to �it an actual market need using valuable skills like communication, negotiation and pivoting. On Sunday, they presented their �inal pitches to a distinguished panel of UI alums, faculty and investors for a chance at $2,000 in total cash prizes.

The seven teams to watch for in the future are: Blue Cheese; Boomer Network; CareerKarma; Catheter; PartnerUp; Slingshot; SocialPulse; and Speech Boss.

FALL QUICK PITCH BIZ COMPETITION WINNER KAYLA KEARNS Clear Lake High School senior, Kayla Kearns, won �irst place and $1,500 in

the Jacobson Institute for Youth Entrepreneurship’s Fall Quick Pitch Biz Competition. Featured in the Mason City Globe Gazette, Kayla’s inventions include an all-aluminum egress window and a laser pool cue attachment guaranteed to improve your stroke. High school students can compete using a new or existing business, invention or innovation.

BELL BIZ FAIRThe Bell Biz Fair, on May 9, focused on engaging students who had their own startup idea. People who

attended the fair gave the most promising startups in their opinion “JPEC Cash” and the winner was

decided by how much cash they received by the end of the night. The first place winner of $3,500 was

Edible Innovations (BlueCheese) led by a team of two UI undergraduates, Ruihao Min and Ming Jiany.

FORMER BELL COMPANY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY It seems like only yesterday that Bio::Neos was a student business located in JPEC’s Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory — actually it was 2004. “Ten years went by quickly, yet I feel like we are just getting started,” said Steve Davis, President and founding member of Bio::Neos, a bioinformatics software company.

Over the years, Bio::Neos has grown from a student �irm in the business incubator, to the UI’s Technology Innovation Center, and now as a thriving technology company at the UI’s BioVentures Center. The company continues to work with a variety of clients throughout the nation and handle a highly variable workload in part with an extended network of subcontractors that they have developed.

VENTURE SCHOOL- IMPACTING STUDENTS ON CAMPUS AND BEYOND Julian Valencia and Erik Ashby came into the University of Iowa’s Venture School last fall with an idea and a lot of enthusiasm. As full-time MBA students, they were exposed to case studies and innovative business strategies. Venture School provided an opportunity to put this knowledge to work while building and testing their own business concept.

As part of Venture School’s eight week program, Valencia and Ashby were assigned a mentor and asked to talk with 100 potential customers about their big idea. During this “customer discovery,” they focused on different aspects of the business model canvas, such as their value proposition, revenue models and addressable market size. Each week, Valencia and Ashby pitched their discoveries in class and received constructive feedback from instructors, mentors and their peers. In the end, Valencia and Ashby learned they needed to pivot from their original vision to have a more viable business.

Ashby commented, “Venture School gave me a chance to put what I’ve learned into practice, while getting feedback from a team of instructors and mentors whom had a variety of expertise and experiences.”

Venture school will be coming to Des Moines in September, and over the next year, the UI will partner with community colleges and other organizations to take this exciting new program across the state. For more information, visit www.iowajpec.org/venture-school.