The Oklahoma State University School for Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship have named the winners of the 2022 student competition to create business plans for innovative startups. The Riata Business Plan Competition at the Spears School of Business promotes entrepreneurship and small business development by focusing on student-created, -managed and -owned ventures.
This year’s in-person competition, which was open to any current OSU student regardless of discipline, attracted 26 business plan entries submitted by individuals and teams in four categories:
- Main Street LifeStyle businesses with products or services for a larger market.
- Big City/High Tech businesses with an intellectual property or technology component.
- Social Enterprise ventures that offer solutions to social, cultural or environmental issues.
- Rising Entrepreneur, a new category this year for previous competition winners.
“This year’s Business Plan Competition was by far one of the best we have had and the dedication of time and effort to the development of this year’s ventures was not unnoticed,” said Chad Mills with the Riata Center. “All of the participants brought their A-game this year, leaving our judges with some very tough decisions in selecting the best.”
Winners and business name:
Main Street LifeStyles
1st – Kyla Ellis, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Events Unboxed
2nd – Camden Swan, MBA, 918 Crepes
3rd – David Berman, Integrative Biology, Seeds n Weeds
High Tech
1st – Patrick Bruce, MBA, Titan
2nd – Alexis Drake General Business Pre-Law; Amy Campbell, Political Science Pre-Law; Rosty Bruce, Ph.D in Physics; Aaron Chambers, Management Information Systems and Finance, ParkingU
3rd – Habib Boloorchi, Ph.D in Computer Science, Retinator
Social Enterprise
1st – Eden McCormack, Marketing; Keenan Holsapple, Computer Engineering; James Ayers Finance, Wave
2nd – Alejandro Garcia-Montiel, MBA, Miggo Mundo
Rising Entrepreneur
1st – Jacob Miller, Finance; William Colton, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Paldara
2nd – Rachel Brown, MBA, Strides
3rd – Kevin Heupel, Ph.D in Entrepreneurship; Saeed Manouchehri, Ph.D in Chemical Engineering, BioSeal XE
First-place winners received $6,000 followed by $4,000 for second place and $2,000 for third. Semifinalists were awarded $1,000 each.
Kyla Ellis and her venture Events Unboxed was the winner of the $3,000 Richard L. Tourtellotte Family Scholarship awarded to encourage business creation in Oklahoma and academic study of how governments and the private sector can work together to grow local economies and create jobs.
To learn more about the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship at Spears Business visit https://business.okstate.edu/riata/index.html.
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