Texas Venture Lab Preps Entrepreneurs

MCCOMBS SCHOLARSHIPS CONFEERED TO TWO WINNERS EACH YEAR

Leffall may be the biggest success story to come from the Texas Venture Lab Scholarship Competition, but he probably won’t be the last. Started in 2013, the competition is open to aspiring entrepreneurs (provided they’re not already enrolled in an MBA program). Ventures may include everything from startups already generating revenue to “an idea on a napkin.”

Each year, two winners are selected for a scholarship worth up to $174,000. This includes tuition worth up to $25,000 a year at McCombs, along with startup support from Texas Venture Labs (including potential admission in its accelerator program after graduation) and even consideration for a post-graduate position as a venture partner (worth $50,000). Runners-up also receive $2,000 scholarships to McCombs.

Here’s how it works: McCombs accepts entries beginning each October, with final submissions due in January. Contestants are required to include a statement of interest, 60-90 second video pitch, and a two-page business executive summary. From there, McCombs selects 16 semifinalists, who are invited onto campus in February to conduct 20-minute presentations before the judges (which included a McCombs faculty member, administrator, alum, and entrepreneur-in-residence in 2015). In the final round, eight ventures are evaluated on a three point scale (“Best,” “Better,” and “Good”) in three categories: Company (Product overview, five-year plan, etc.), Presentation Skills (Enthusiasm, visuals, etc.) and Entrepreneurship and McCombs (“How will McCombs help” and “Why is an MBA beneficial”).

For Leffall, the competition simulated what he would later experience at McCombs. “It gets you in front of people…[who’ll] grill you and ask you a lot of questions. It really makes you have to think through it.”

EXPOSES STUDENTS TO MCCOMBS’ FACT-BASED APPROACH

Some might dismiss the Texas Venture Lab Scholarship Competition as a marketing ploy. In reality, McCombs uses it more to better vet prospective students for fit with the entrepreneurship program (currently ranked eighth by U.S. News & World Report.). In an email to Poets&Quants, Tina Mabley, the school’s assistant dean and director of the full-time MBA program, notes that the competition helps her “attract and evaluate entrepreneurially-minded applicants in a way that showcases their skills and passion better than an admissions application.”

Similarly, Adams views the competition as a way to expose students to the philosophies underlying McCombs’ curriculum. “What we emphasize are data driven approaches. A lot of entrepreneurs tend to wave their hands and try to get you all enthusiastic. We like all that, but we also like what I call the ‘cold hard command of facts’: Competitive analysis, market validation, business model. [In a nutshell, we’re asking]: Are we going to make money doing this?”

Logan Robinson, a research fellow at McCombs, adds that entrepreneurship is a cornerstone of the school’s curriculum as a whole. “In the 21st century, if you have an MBA, you have to know entrepreneurship. You have to know it as a strategy, not just a new business that gets run. So we emphasize entrepreneurship as strategy. The curriculum is relevant to someone who is going to start a business and it’s relevant to someone who’s going to work at Southwest Airlines, Google, General Electric or Microsoft.”

2015 WINNERS USE FACTS AND FIGURES TO WOW JUDGES

In February, Omar Garza and Tenaj Ferguson emerged as this year’s scholarship recipients. Garza presented YouRefund, a mobile application that, according to the school, “makes it cheaper and easier for foreign shoppers to recover their Texas sales tax, while also helping identify and avoid tax fraud.” In contrast, Tenaj Ferguson pitched Lady Epicure Gourmet, a natural food brand that specializes in gourmet frozen bars (i.e. popsicles).

According to Adams, both entrepreneurs brought a strong empirical bent to this year’s Texas Venture Lab Scholarship Competition. “Both had in depth knowledge of all the data and fact-based stuff as well as enthusiastic, passionate presentations.” Garza, in particular, epitomized this approach. “He had real good numbers to back up his points,” Robinson notes. “It was a problem that he himself had experienced so it was a problem that he knew. There was a big market for that product in particular.”

For Ferguson, who’ll start at McCombs in the fall, Lady Epicure Gourmet is an ambitious endeavor with plenty of room for growth and innovation. Her specialty treats, inspired by the Caribbean, stir curiosity by featuring unconventional flavor pairings like cinnamon sweet potato pie and pineapple lavender. Ferguson also sees it as a disruptive innovation, swapping out the “old basic flavors” for something more “fun.” And this experience is key to her product’s value. While Lady Epicure Gourmet maintains an eCommerce footprint, Ferguson is looking to move from small events like baby showers and corporate gatherings to retail outlets (think Whole Foods Market) and gift services. Ultimately, she plans to take the frozen yogurt machine concept and apply it to gourmet treats. Using touchscreen instant serve machines, she hopes consumers can someday customize their popsicles using items like toppings, juice, and natural sweeteners. In doing so, she dreams of breaking into markets like malls, sports stadiums, cruise ships, and amusement parks like Disney.