1. RICH MCCARTY RETIRING
Rich 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 2014
Transforming 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.
VOLDINGBUSINESSMODEL
COMPETITIONWINNERS
MERLEVOLDINGHONORFLIGHT
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
thecurrentstageofthestartup.TheUIBMCisanofficialqualifier
for the International BMC. This year Iowa Adaptive Technologies
won an additional $5,000 and advanced to the semi-final round
at the IBMC hosted at BYU in May.
BUSINESSMODELCOMPETITIONWINNERS
1stPlace:$11,000each
•pxAlpha(BlakeDirksen,UIFaculty;RyanFlynn,UIFaculty)
•SystemsPrognostic,LLC(BruceAyati,UIFaculty)
2ndPlace:$8,500each
•IowaAdaptiveTechnologies:(BenBerkowitz,UIGraduate;RichardHurtig,
UIFaculty)
3rdPlace:$5,000each
•Blo2dWorks:(SamanthaMiller,UIGraduate;EricDinges,UIUndergraduate;
EllenGardner,UIUndergraduate;KevinJohnson,UIUndergraduate;
ElizabethWinter,UIUndergraduate)
4thPlace:$3,500each
•Translacare:(RyanRies,UIUndergraduate)
•Imblim:(AnnaBruno,UIGraduate)
•OkaraFoodCompany:(HannahJohnson,UIUndergraduate;MattMesaros,
UIUndergraduate;JoshuaDraves-Kellerman,UIUndergraduate;Jake
Gratzon,UIUndergraduate)
•SafePlace:(KelseySmithart,UIGraduate;LaurenAguilar,UIUndergraduate)
•WidespreadThreads:(JeridSchumacher,UIUndergraduate;TaylorGrote,
UIUndergraduate)
5thPlace:$2,500each
•RealPropertyIntelligence:(JohnNicholson,UIGraduate)
•Syruption:(CarterYerkes,UIUndergraduate;NoahKirschbaum,
UIUndergraduate;TylerLubbs,UIUndergraduate)
•BoomerNetwork:(ArabellaFranze-Soeln,UIUndergraduate;Maximilian
Franze-Soeln,UIUndergraduate)
•EdibleInnovations:(RuihaoMin,UIUndergraduate)
6thPlace:$1,000each
•Spectator:(JonMyers,UIUndergraduate;JDMcCollough,UIUndergraduate;
BrandonKeifer,UIUndergraduate)
•LaunchServices:(GeraldRedlinger,UIUndergraduate;LukeHaverkamp,
UIUndergraduate)
•BoomerNetwork:(ArabellaFranze-Soeln,UIUndergraduate;Maximilian
Franze-Soeln,UIUndergraduate)
•EdibleInnovations:(RuihaoMin,UIUndergraduate)
“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
spendingthreedaysonthe UIcampus
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
primarilycenteredontheimportance
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

2. 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 FAIR
The 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
JulianValenciaandErikAshbycameintotheUniversityofIowa’sVentureSchoollastfall
with an idea and a lot of enthusiasm. As full-time MBA students, they were exposed to
casestudiesandinnovativebusinessstrategies.VentureSchoolprovidedanopportunity
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
mentorandaskedtotalkwith100potentialcustomersabouttheirbigidea.Duringthis
“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.