Congratulations to Tom Monaghan (USF EMBA 2007) and Tesh Khullar (USF EMBA 2006) for their outstanding achievement in winning 3rd place in the National Seed Business Plan Competition in Santa Barbara last weekend. 

 

Tom and Tesh were one of 10 teams http://www.entrepoint.com/seed.htm invited from among the 72 applications for the contest.   They edged out teams from Harvard and Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison and others for one of the 4 finalist positions.

 

They presented their new venture proposal, RealAgent (a real estate software firm) before judging panels of VCs, Angel Investors, attorneys, and CEOs and well handled intensive Q&A sessions lasting 30 and 45 minutes.

 

Tom commented, "We really valued the opportunity to get up in front of VCs and Angels to pitch the idea.  The hardball questions were fair, true-to-life, and very challenging.  The experience at SEED was a great primer -- we learned a lot and made many business contacts.  We are grateful for the chance to represent RealAgent and USF."  Tom worked on his plan for Real Agent in our MBAE program last year and won second place in the Internal contest organized by the MBA Entrepreneur Club last Fall.

 

They will compete again at the San Diego State Univ Business Plan Competition (the nation's oldest event) http://130.191.176.92/pageVentureChallengeGateway.aspx March 27-29, 2008.