Need Your Support

We just entered an elevator pitch competition at MIT, but to get to the finals we need your help. The link below will take you to a YouTube page with a video of our elevator pitch. Click on the link and "like" the video. If we get the most "likes" we win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTQs68cGb0

Hurry, we only have a couple of days. Tell all your friends to "like" it too. Thank you for your support.

Walmart Update

We didn't make it to the finals of the Walmart Competition.  However, we will be presenting our elevator pitch.  It's great if you haven't seen it, you should definitely come check it out.  We'll be presenting around 1:00 pm.

In case you haven't seen it, here's a video of Pree, our CMO, delivering the elevator pitch.

Quick Update

We have been very busy lately. Catching up on classes and competing in competitions.  When I last wrote we had just finished up Governor's Cup.  Well we won, we took the top spot in every event we competed in: 1st place overall graduate level, 1st place agriculture track, and 1st place graduate elevator pitch.  We are undefeated in elevator pitch events.  We've won every single elevator pitch competition that we've competed in.

Last week we were down in Houston competing at the Rice Business Plan Competition.  This is one of the largest, if not the largest, business plan competitions in the world.  The University of Arkansas was very well represented at this event.  Both of our teams made the finals, which also means that both of our teams are in the top 1% of all competing teams.  Not bad, considering we are competing against the best in the world.  We placed 4th overall, while our other team TiFiber placed 6th.  The University of Arkansas is very proud of both our teams.  For making it to the finals both teams will be featured in the May 23rd issue of Fortune, this is the Fortune 500 issue.  Definitely check it out.  I have to send out a special thanks to the Fortune crew, they were fantastic.  We had lots fun with the photography crew, as well as the interviewer, Jessica Shambora.

This week we are competing in the Walmart Better Living Business Plan Competition.  We presented this morning.  We find out tonight if we made it to the finals tomorrow.  I will let you know how we do as soon as I find out.

Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup

Another week, another competition.  cycleWood Solutions just finished up the Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup.  This competition is a little different from the others we've been to.  There were no spectators, just judges.  We had a longer amount of time for our presentation, 20 minutes instead of 15.  We also don't find out if we won or not for two weeks.  We feel ok about the how we did, but we're not overly confident.  The two top teams from this competition move on to the Tri-state Competition in Las Vegas.  We are hoping to grab one of those two spots.  The first place prize here is $20,000.  That would be a nice little investment for our start-up.  There will be a luncheon on April 20 to announce the winners.  That's when we'll also have the elevator pitch competition.  The Governor will be on hand to cheer us on.  It should be kind of a big deal.

While we were in Little Rock, we sat down and had a conversation with the Arkansas Secretary of State.  He's a pretty sharp fellow himself.  The conversation was interesting.  We talked about our business, politics, and economics.  The entire staff in the capital building was very welcoming.  We got a tour and talked to several people along the way.  This was all arranged by our Chief Business Development Officer, Jack Avery, who is also an elected constable.

Next week we are headed back down to Houston to compete in the Rice Competition which has over $1,000,000 in prizes.  It's also one of the toughest competitions.  Over 500 teams applied, but only 42 teams were accepted.  The University of Arkansas has two teams accepted, us and TiFiber. 

O' Canada

This past weekend we were in Canada, Winnipeg to be exact, for the Stu Clark Investment Competition.  We won two prizes.  We won the Royal Bank of Canada Challenge Round, winning $2,000, and we also won the elevator pitch, winning a $2,000 dinner.

The dinner was an amazing experience.  It was a five course meal with five wines paired up by a sommelier.  The dinner included a 7 lb lobster that was probably 100 years old, a rack of lamb, ribs, filet mignon, New York strip, Vietnamese tiger prawns, a couple salad dishes, wild mushrooms, carpaccio, creme brule, chocolate cheesecake, and blueberry bread pudding.  There were some other items, but that's all I can remember.  Needless to say we were quite full afterwards.

The experience in Winnipeg was great, we met some great folks up there.  We invited the keynote speaker to come down to Fayetteville this Fall and he agreed.  The advice and feedback we receive is so much more valuable than the actual monetary prizes.  We formally decided to move forward with cycleWood Solutions, LLC.  This is a huge step for us.  We are working with the our Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments to develop a prototype.

Another piece of good news we received over the weekends is that we have been extended an at-large berth into the Venture Labs (formerly Moot Corp) competition.  So we'll be headed down to Austin in the beginning of May.

Next up for us is Arkansas Governor's Cup.  We'll be headed down to Little Rock Thursday morning.  We present Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.  Wish us luck.