Tallahassee, Fla. – They vied against some stiff competition in the Shark Tank round of Florida State University’s InNOLEvation Challenge and faced tough questions by a panel of judges, but on Friday, High-Throughput Revolutions emerged as the first-place winner of the six-month business competition, and taking home $150,000 in cash and in-kind services. The remaining $100,000 was distributed among the two runners-up and the seven remaining finalists.
The first-place winners and founders of High-Throughput Revolutions are biological sciences majors Nicolas Vafai and Aubrey Kusi-Appiah, both graduate students, and Sohail Merchant, a senior.

Shark Tank was the third and final round of the InNOLEvation Challenge – one of the nation’s largest collegiate business plan competitions – sponsored by the Florida State University College of Business and The Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship. Ten student business startups competed in the Shark Tank, culled from an initial 78 fledgling businesses that submitted business plans in October. The owners of the final 10 businesses made their pitches for funding before a panel of five judges from the investment community. The ranking of the teams was based on the judges’ willingness to invest in the company. Scores are based on the written business plan, an oral presentation and business viability.

High-Throughput Revolutions LLC’s business plan detailed its strategyto provide “LIMITtm “ – LIposome Microarray Technology – to offer a cost-effective solution for high-throughput screening (HTS) during drug development. HTS’s founders say the market for HTS accounts for the largest share of the drug discovery market. “HTS technology has the potential to carry our tests at higher magnitudes in addition to being cost-effective, which is highly advantageous,” said Vafai. “In the future, we plan larger purchasing contracts with pharmaceutical companies, which will translate into steady and larger profit margins.”

The runners-ups included:

Nanotech Patronas Group (NP Group) placed second in the completion, walking away with $55,000 in cash and in-kind services. NP Group comprises industrial engineering doctoral candidates from the Florida A&M University/FSU College of Engineering. Team members include Ph.D. candidates Tarik Dickens and David Olawale. NP Group is in a damage monitoring and prevention business that uses innovative triboluminescence sensor systems for engineering structures, such as aircrafts, buildings and bridges. The company was founded in 2011 after more than fiveyears of research and development on the triboluminescence sensor systems.

Third-place went to College Cleaners founders, seniors Michael Loudis, who is majoring in business administration; Patrick Cueva, an economics major; and Kash Fallahzadeh, an accounting major. Their take home was $45,000 in cash and prizes.
College Cleaners, LLC is a janitorial company concentrating in the cleaning and sanitation of student homes/apartments, fraternity/sorority homes, and commercial offices, as well as bars, clubs and restaurants. College Cleaners also specializes in the busy college town summer-turn period, during which students moving out are quickly replaced by new student tenants. College Cleaners seeks to fill a market need for cleaning services for both residential and commercial properties.

The other competing teams, which each received $1,000, included:

CalSpark
CalSpark offers users a high-quality productivity application across all customer devices via the web. CalSpark’s product is designed to make it easy and convenient to organize day-to-day activities and connect users with events of interest. It also allows users and businesses to promote their events.

Piano Conservatory of Tallahassee
Piano Conservatory of Tallahassee’s goal is to provide high-quality preschool, precollege and adult piano instruction to residents of Tallahassee, using the Carnegie Hall Achievement Program Curriculum. The company offers comprehensive music education, including applied lessons, music theory and appreciation classes, and ample opportunities to perform.

CampusZilla.com
CampusZilla.com’s mission is to provide free, useful and reliable information tailored to the needs of individuals interested in learning more about the college experience. The company provides advice on selecting the right school, career guidance, and identification of the best housing environment, among other things. Providing the full spectrum of personalized collegiate information for anyone interested is the foundation of CampusZilla.com.

Wordio
Wordio aims to make the consumption of digital information more efficient. By transforming written content on the web to audio instantly, the company enables its users to listen to their favorite web articles while driving, exercising or relaxing.

Startupism
Startupism has created a startup business simulation game to be sold to universities as class material. Much like simulators used in most business schools, Startupism’s game will be based on famous cases so students can compare their decision-making against real-world business leaders. Case material will be written by academics, and Startupism will create the game platform and user interface.

LESS
LESS designs products that allow utility companies to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction and decrease peak load usage. LESS plans to develop three products to achieve this. The first product is designed to change consumer behavior so users shift power consumption to times of lower demand. The second product is an application for utility companies to increase efficiency in the field, and as such, to recover from outages more quickly. The third product is an integrated hardware and software solution that allows consumers to turn key appliances off during peak load times for short time periods.

Nutrition Experts (NX)
Nutrition Experts’ goal is to create increased access to registered dietitians and medical nutrition therapy services. The company initially plans to launch in the Big Bend area of Florida. It offers flexible and up-to-date services using the Internet and mobile technology. The company intends to align with health care providers and target its services to the insured, families, and children.

Judges included:
Farouk Al-Shorafa, Idea Farm South, Fort Meyers, Fla.
Nada Usina, Russell Reynolds Associates, New York, NY.
Chad Kittrell, Hunter & Harp Holdings, LLC, Tallahassee, Fla.
David Lawson, TrueGivers, LLC, Tallahassee, Fla.
David Whitney, Energents, Gainesville, Fla.

The competition was supported by corporate sponsors, including: ALCOM, Palo Alto Software, Strategic Media Arts, Viera Williams, P.A. Attorneys at Law, MarketDone, LooksForBooks.com, Notelog.com, PayOut USA, RoomSync, Duncan-Williams, Inc., Energent Ventures, Special Issues.com, Creative People Consulting, Honey Tree, The Prescient Consulting Group and VC Mentor.
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We will follow the same process for the Q&A session. During your presentation, the host will raise 3 fingers when you have 3 minutes remaining. The host will raise 1 finger when you have 1 minute remaining in your allotted time to present. The host will begin clapping at the conclusion of your allotted time.

There will only be 2 minutes between each presentation for teams to set-up in the Final Round. Each team should be in position outside room 105 at least 20 minutes prior to their designated presentation time. Teams will start early if the team before them finishes ahead of schedule.

There will only be 2 minutes between each presentation for teams to set-up in the Final Round. Each team should be in position outside room 105 at least 20 minutes prior to their designated presentation time (see below). Teams will start early if the team before them finishes ahead of schedule.

Teams will NOT be allowed to observe the presentations of their competitors. This observation guideline applies to teams’ faculty advisors and special guests. All students, including non-involved observers, will be dismissed upon completion of the presentations (11:40 am) and asked to return for the announcement of the winners (12:30 pm).

The teams’ order of presentation was determined by drawing names out of a hat.

7:30 a.m. Coffee

8:00 a.m. Opening Remarks
This competition wouldn’t be possible without the support of an incredibly generous group of corporate sponsors

8:10 a.m. CalSpark Presentation – Q&A

8:30 a.m. Piano Conservatory of Tallahassee Presentation – Q&A

8:50 a.m. CampusZilla Presentation – Q&A

9:10 a.m. High-Throughput Revolution Presentation – Q&A

9:30 a.m. College Cleaners Presentation – Q&A

9:50 a.m. Break

10:00 a.m. Wordio Presentation – Q&A

10:20 a.m. Startupism Presentation – Q&A

10:40 a.m. LESS Presentation – Q&A

11:00 a.m. NP Group Presentation – Q&A

11:20 a.m. Nutrition Experts (NX) Presentation – Q&A

11:40 a.m. Lunch/Judges’ Deliberations

12:30 p.m. Announcement of the Winners

1:20 p.m. Closing Remarks

We recognize that consistent with real life investment situations, early-stage companies can be in very different stages of development. To compensate for this, we would expect that an early stage investor would require the potential for higher investment returns for an earlier stage company, which has a higher level of risk involved. We assume, in general, that this would be true for the judges in the InNOLEvation Challenge.

Teams are not required to reveal the exact desired terms of the deal (i.e., their proposed company valuation and percentage of company being offered to investors). However, some investors prefer to have this information upfront (while some investors feel that it is not as important until later). We recommend that teams be prepared to address questions about their terms, but it is up to the team to decide how they want to answer these questions.

Unlike many venture capital funds, judges in this competition should not restrict themselves to investing in only certain types of new business ventures (such as biotechnology or information technology). Judges in this competition should assume that they would be open to investing in any type of new business venture, assuming that other criteria such as those mentioned above, are met.

The Final/Shark Tank Round will be held on Friday, April 13. All teams must be present in the Turnbull Center on April 13 to present their plan to the judges.

During the competition, judges are asked to evaluate each team individually and should not discuss their evaluation with other judges until all judges’ evaluation forms have been submitted.

SCORING

The winners of the competition will be determined by the judges’ ranking of the teams. This ranking will be based on the judges’ willingness to invest in the company. Judges will rank the teams from 1 (team most likely to receive funding) to 10 (team least likely to receive funding).

To assist the judges in this decision process and to provide additional feedback to the teams, the judges will fill out 2 scorecards for each team.

The Scorecards are as follows:
Part I Written Business Plan – to be completed prior to April 13
Part II Verbal Presentation & Business Viability – to be completed on April 13

The individual scorecards are designed to provide guidance for judges in evaluating the individual components of each team in order to develop their overall rankings. Scorecards are also designed to provide feedback to the competitors, and will be given to competitors at the end of the competition.

Written Business Plan Evaluation

Judges will review the written business plans of each of the teams and complete Part I of the InNOLEvation Challenge Scorecard for each plan. Part I is designed to help assess the written business plan, focusing on key elements and the effectiveness of the summary financial data. Judges will evaluate the written business plans in advance of the competition and complete Part I of the scorecard by April 12 at 5:00 pm EST. We will make every effort to provide the summarized scorecards to the judges’ lunch/deliberation on Friday, April 13, 2012.

Oral Presentations

Each judge will listen to and evaluate the oral presentations of the teams on Friday, April 13. Judges will use Part II of the InNOLEvation Challenge Scorecard as a guide to determine their rankings.

• Part II assesses the poise and professionalism of the presentation & viability of the venture

The quantitative assessment provided by the Scorecards is only meant to serve as a guide to the judges for ranking the teams. The rankings will determine the overall winners based on where judges would invest their money.

The winning teams in the Final/Shark Tank round will be determined solely by the judges’ ranking of the teams. This ranking will be determined Friday, over lunch, after all of the teams have presented to the judges. The judges will rank the teams in the finals from 1 (highest) to 10 (lowest).

Please let us know in advance if you have any questions or have any special equipment needs. If you have questions about audio/video equipment, please contact Ron Frazier at rlfrazier@fsu.edu. Please note that if your presentation contains video, graphics, or sound, there will be an opportunity to test your presentation on Thursday, April 12 in room 205 of the Rovetta building at 3:15 pm. We will try to help ensure that your presentation works properly at the Competition. However, based on past experience, we cannot guarantee that video, graphics, and sound will work 100% of the time.

Technology / Service / Innovation
1.) The team has presented a clear and concise overview of its unique capabilities and state of development.
2.) There is minimal fundamental technology or development risk left to resolve.
3.) The team has a solid Intellectual Property position as well as plans to protect it.

Product or Service
1.) The team has identified a compelling initial product or service.
2.) The team has described a robust product/service additions roadmap going forward.
Market
1.) The team did a good job identifying its initial target market
2.) The team is targeting a large and attractive potential market
3.) The team showed credible market research data to support its market size claims
4.) The team identified large and attractive secondary markets to serve over the long term
5.) The team has articulated a strong hard-dollar customer value proposition.

Competition
1.) The team comprehensively identified potential competitors.
2.) The initial product or service has strong competitive advantages vs. existing alternatives.
3.) The team’s unique innovations will confer sustainable competitive advantages on its products or services as these evolve over time.

Development Plan
1.) The team has outlined a credible and thorough plan for developing its first product or service.
2.) The team has clearly identified its resource requirements and these can be reasonably obtained.
3.) The team has a plan to derive additional funding from alternative sources such as government grants, friends, bootstrapping, bank loans, etc.

Distribution Plan
1.) The team understands and has clearly articulated its business model.
2.) The team’s sales model is a good fit for its product/service and business model.

Team
1.) The team has a strong and complete founding management team or a well described plan to build such a team.
2.) The team has attracted an impressive advisory board or has a well described plan to develop such a board.
3.) The team clearly understands what additional people and skills it needs to build a team.

Financial Projections
1.) The team has clearly described its funding needs; these are reasonable and adequate to the task.
2.) The team has presented attractive and credible 5 year financial projections.

The scoring for the Final/Shark Tank will begin fresh with new judges. Any one of the 10 teams invited is still in a position to win!

CalSpark
CampusZilla
College Cleaners
High-Throughput Revolution
LESS
NP Group
Nutrition Experts – NX
Piano Conservatory of Tallahassee
Startupism
Wordio