IN ITS THIRD YEAR, THE MINNESOTA CUP CONTINUES

TO SUPPORT GROUNDBREAKING BUSINESS IDEAS.

WHILE THE COMPETITION GROWS, SO GROWS THE

SPIRIT OF COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION

AMONG THE STATE’S FUTURE INNOVATORS.

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Year-Three Roundup:Under the direction of founders Scott Litman and Dan Mallin, the Minnesota Cup competition hasgrown into a full-time resource for entrepreneurs.

The Top FiveFrom curing the obesity epidemic, to leveragingthe wisdom of crowds, the Minnesota Cup’s five finalists share their stories.

Where are they now?A Minnesota Cup finalist in 2005, HealthSimple’s business plan has realized its early promise.

Sponsored by:

From left: Michelle Gobrecht, David Padgett, Carie Mathison,Michael Noble, Carrie Lura, Greg Pavett, James Levine, John Montague, Kevin Krase, Adam Southam.

s every entrepreneurknows, starting a busi-

ness isn’t a venture for lonewolves. Every successful start-upcontains the sweat, creativity,and energy of lots of people, andeven the best ideas can use aboost.

Now in its third year, the Cupprovides a competitive forum bywhich entrepreneurs can not onlyvie for prize money ($25,000 inseed capital for the winningentry), but also gain access to awealth of tools, resources, and aprocess that helps entrants writebetter business plans.

“We wanted to findentrepreneurs who we felt weregoing to be the next big successstories in the state,” says ScottLitman, co-founder of theMinnesota Cup along with DanMallin. “We also hoped that indoing so, we would introduce the businesscommunity, investors, lawyers, accountants, andmarketing professionals to these entrepreneurs tohelp them build their businesses.”

Businesses have responded in increasingnumbers—in the Cup’s three-year history, it hasdrawn almost 1,800 entrants. And with thisvolume has come impressive variety.

“We see everything from farmers coming up withnew implements, to business plans in thebiosciences, retail, child care, education, and Webarena,” Mallin says. “The range is amazing.”

The success of the Minnesota Cup inspired

Litman and Mallin to start GetGo(www.getgomn.org) earlier this year. Afterseeing how hard Cup entrants worked to createbusiness contacts, the two decided to help themexpand their networks by building what amounts toa MySpace-like network for the localentrepreneurial community.

“We wanted to extend some of the benefits of theMinnesota Cup to an audience beyond the semi-finalist and finalist,” Litman says. “This wouldprovide more visibility to all Minnesotaentrepreneurs; creating access to tools to usethrough the year as they build their ventures.”

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Now in its third year, the Minnesota Cup has grown into more than a

competition. It’s now a statewide resource. By Dan Heilman

For Minnesota Cup founders Dan Mallin (left) and Scott Litman,the goal is to provide all Minnesotaentrepreneurs tools to build their ventures yearlong.

GroundbreakingDevelopments

Additional Minnesota Cupsponsors include:

P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y C R A I G B A R E S

A

Litman says companies use GetGo toinvite colleagues, advisors, investors, andpartners into their networks where a secure,collaborative environment exists for blogs,forums, shared files, emails, and calendars.

Another valuable resource being offered toCup entrants is the James J. Hill

Reference Library’s HillSearchtool. HillSearch offers numerous resources,many of which are not available elsewhereon the Internet, that can help broaden andsharpen business plans.

“At least 4,000 entrepreneurs a year usesome part of our HillSearch portfolio to startand grow their business,” says Jim Poole,the library’s membership developmentmanager.

All told, the Hill library helps nearly half amillion budding and growing businesseseach year. That’s not surprising, consideringthe deep access points available, includingmore than 14,000,000 U.S. and Canadiancompanies, nearly 6,000 trade periodicals,1,200 newspapers, 10,000 e-books,

Another resource for Cup competitors is theCEO Roundtable, a nonprofitorganization that assembles CEOs from fast-growing companies to share ideas andsolutions. The experience in the CEORoundtable is a great boon to Cup semi-finalists, who turn to the group formentorship and coaching.

“Our mentors met with 15 of the semi-finalists this year to provide feedback andadvice on their business plans,” says JohnStavig, director of the Gary Holmes Center forEntrepreneurship, which works with both theMinnesota Cup and CEO Roundtable. “Ourmentors see this as a means of giving backand learning about the exciting newbusinesses being developed in Minnesota.”

Another valuable helping hand for Cupcontestants is the Early Stage InvestorsNetwork (ESIN), a group of nearly 80local angel investors who meet eight timesannually to review business plans and hearentrepreneurs’ pitches.

“We help give them a place to have theirbusiness plans screened by a group ofknowledgeable investors, and potentiallypresent to a meeting of 20 to 30 privateinvestors,” says Michael Moore, who runsESIN and is on the Minnesota Cup reviewboard. “With the advent of the MinnesotaCup and GetGoMN.org, participants becomepart of the early-stage community, receiving

feedback, and making contacts that mightlead to funding or other relationships.”

With that multifaceted group at theirdisposal, it’s no wonder entrepreneurs areclamoring for the Minnesota Cup. Mallin andLitman plan to make the competition evenstronger in coming years.

“Our goal is to keep growing the program,”says Mallin. “Next year, we will work to addmore partners and provide more help to ourentrants. We’ll focus on awareness, so thatmore entrepreneurs can find out andparticipate in the Minnesota Cup.”

If you need proof that participating inthe Minnesota Cup can provide aninvaluable boost to a growing business,just ask Doug and Lisa Powell.

The Powells are the founders ofHealthSimple, a creator of educationaland life-management tools for childrenand adults living with Type 1 or Type 2diabetes. Type 1Tools, the company’sflagship line of products, was created in2004 after the Powells’ daughter wasdiagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Today,Health care providers and patientsaround the world can access the tools.

The company was a finalist in 2005’sMinnesota Cup, and that status led to astronger, more secure company.

“Doug and I knew we had a goodidea, and we certainly had passion,”says Lisa Powell, “but through the Cupwe were able to develop a team oflawyers, accountants, and MBA-trainedconsultants that both validated andsuper-charged our business.”

HealthSimple recently completed anacquisition deal with McNeil Nutritionals,a Ft. Washington, Pa.-based Johnson &Johnson-owned global marketer ofnutritional products. Lisa Powell says theMinnesota Cup was “instrumental” inhelping complete the deal with McNeilNutritionals, which plans to expandHealthSimple’s products and make themmore broadly available. “Competing inthe Minnesota Cup was an incrediblyvaluable experience,” Powell says.

HHEEAALLTTHHSSIIMMPPLLEE

No doubt you’ve seen them driving intheir black-and-white VW Beetles,wearing their short-sleeved white dressshirts. The ubiquity of Geek Squad inthe computer repair industry belies thefact that the company has existedbarely a decade.

Founded by Robert Stephens in 1994,Geek Squad started as a one-man show,with Stephens biking between repair jobsaround the University of Minnesotacampus. The company’s reputation—and its quirky image—was quicklyestablished, and in 2002, the companywas purchased by Richfield-based BestBuy. Today, the company employs morethan 15,000 technicians worldwide whohandle not just installations, but anyhome IT problems.

The Minnesota Historical Society evenadded the unmistakable Geek Squaduniform to its permanent collection in2000.

Geek Squad continues to streamline itsoperation by offering 24-hour remotecomputer support, allowing online agentsto log on remotely to the customer’s PCand perform many of the same servicesas the customer would get from in-homeor in-store professionals, but with agreater level of convenience.

The future might hold even greaterthings for Geek Squad. In Florida, BestBuy and Office Depot are involved in atrial partnership, putting Geek Squad“precincts” and products in 11 OfficeDepot stores. That could potentiallyexpand Geek Squad’s presence to morethan 1,000 Office Depot stores.

EENNTTRREEPPRREENNEEUURROOFF TTHHEE YYEEAARR AAWWAARRDD

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4 2 0 0 7 M I N N E S O T A C U P • B R E A K T H R O U G H I D E A S . O R G

TEAM: Adam AlmenNAME:Quiescent: A sleep

Disorder Screening Device

TEAM: Paul Bellefleur, Andy Grund, Jeff Saunders, Bill Hayes

NAME:PodCom DotBiz

TEAM: Eric Chiles, Venk ReddyNAME:LessonBites

TEAM: Michelle Courtright Bjork, Mark Fawcett

NAME:Romeo & Juliet Shops

TEAM: Willetta DeYoungNAME:EDP Textiles: Digital-

printed textiles

TEAM: Nathan Dungan, Pamela Diamond, Christi Cardenas, Art Berman

NAME:Share Save Spend

TEAM: Timothy EverettNAME:Cognition Network

TEAM: James Gayes, Mark Nissen

NAME:Nissen IPAD: Inflatable patient adjustment device

TEAM: Diane Gerres NAME:Steve’s Hitch

TEAM: Chad Gilhoi, Jennifer Gilhoi

NAME:VOOM 411

TEAM: Nate GriggsNAME:Kabir Tech Business

Plan

TEAM: Colin Hirdman, Zach Steven, Josh Becerra

NAME:Buy the Change:Building community through commerce

TEAM: Christine Horton, Britt Norton

NAME:CoreSpine Technologies, LLC

TEAM: Paul Howe, Pam Cabalka, Wim Stocks

NAME:Learn2Sport

TEAM: Jason Johnson, Lisa Boelter

NAME:PlajaPets

TEAM: Louis LaPointeNAME:BrightGreen FOG

mileage system and hybrid Vehicle

TEAM: Elizabeth Levang, Sandy Maclean

NAME:The Miscarriage Clinic

TEAM: Maureen McKayNAME:Optimistic Outcomes

TEAM: Russell Morfitt, Dale Cook

NAME:EduCalm, LLC

TEAM: Michael Murray-JohnNAME:Equilateral Industries:

Icoshelter

TEAM: Philip NelsonNAME: Independent Features

TEAM: JoAnne Pastel, Kakie Fitzsimmons, Sarah Hermann

NAME:Farmers Hat Productions™

TEAM: David Quimby, Ben Wallace, Neil Bedekar

NAME:Adaptive Avenue Associates, Inc.

TEAM: Rajiv ShahNAME:MyMeds: Medication

records

TEAM: David ShulerNAME:Double Play: Sports-

team investment trustTEAM: Carl-Johan Torarp, Toby

Velte, Beverly Waldorf-Tokarz

NAME:LocalLoop: Enabling Web 2.0 mobile Internet

TEAM: Michael Zumbrunnen, David Zumbrunnen

NAME:Smart Blending Technologies

TEAM: Tyler OlsonNAME:HelpMeTy.com

TEAM: Josh BrockNAME:Lifestyle Martial Arts

TEAM: Nick Beste, Kevin Carlow

NAME:Alumni Advisor

TEAM: Kyle HendersonNAME:Manual Galaxy

MINNESOTA CUP SEMIFINALISTS

STUDENT FINALISTS

“We believe that much of the success of Riverside Bank wasbecause of our work with entrepreneurs. Their businesses planswere sometimes inadequate, so we endowed this foundationwith money that would be given to people so they could workon business plans and improve their chances for success. I’mpleased to see the progress of the Minnesota Cup. It’s going tobe exciting for the people of Minnesota.”

—Dave Cleveland, co-founder, Riverside BankDave and his wife Carolyn endowed a Carlson School of

Management program to fund the Minnesota Cup prize money.

ike America’s waistlines, the attentiondevoted to our obesity epidemic isgrowing by the day. And people are

realizing that surgery and gimmick diets arenot the answer. John Montague and Dr.James Levine, founders of Muve, areworking to find an answer.

Based on a groundbreaking study onobesity from the Mayo Clinic, the two planon using their company to commercializeproducts and services with the best chanceto cure the obesity epidemic.

Those products include a mobile, wearabledevice used to track body movement andconvert the data to calories and energyburned; a software application thatsynchronizes body-movement data with acomputer; and an online network focused onwellness and weight loss.

The seed for Muve was planted in 1995,after the Mayo Clinic—prompted by a phonecall from President Clinton—embarked on a10-year study to determine the causes andidentify cures for the worldwide obesityepidemic. Muve was founded early in 2007to commercialize the breakthrough

programs, technology, and tools thatresulted from this study.

Montague and Levine found that there wasa wealth of data at Mayo regarding obesity,but, as Montague points out, “they didn’thave a vision or plan to commercialize it.For me, it was like assembling all of thepieces and determining the best way toconstruct a puzzle.”

Muve’s target customers are overweightadults and children who are “desk-sentenced”—people who are sitting for amajority of the day.

Muve’s goal is to produce a small digitaldevice called Gruve that records a person’severy movement and calculates how manycalories are burned. Treadmill desks, afitness book, clothing, branded bottled water,nutritional supplements, and healthconsulting also are part of the company’splanned product line.

“Our products and services will helpeducate, motivate, and support their journeyof weight loss and management,” saysMontague.

Muve plans to open a Minneapolis office in

October 2007 and then commence efforts toraise capital. The company’s business plancalls for raising $500,000 to launchdevelopment of hardware and software.

In early 2008, the team hopes to raise anadditional $2 million to completedevelopment and testing.

Muve, says Montague, is the firstscientifically researched and validatedsolution to enable sustainable and healthyweight loss.

The company’s core offering is anintegrated solution that includes an onlineweight-loss program and a mobile device tosupport it. The company is aiming forprofitability by 2011.

Montague left his former company to foundMuve, partly because he wanted to be part ofan enterprise that would bring out thepassion he felt he owed to his work.

“I was losing my sense of passion andpurpose,” he says. “With this new venture,my sense of purpose and passion is sointense that I have a new problem—I can’tsleep.”

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Muve founders John Montague (left) and JamesLevine are creating devices and products to combatthe obesity epidemic.

L

First place

Muve

emember the batteries that woulddisplay a color indicating how much

life was left in them? Wouldn’t it be nice tohave a similar indicator for food freshness—without the peril of having to smell or tastesomething unpleasant?

Based in Minneapolis since 2005,It’sFresh! offers a line of products designed tohelp consumers and retailers determinewhether their food is as it should be. Thecompany’s consumer line consists ofadhesive food freshness indicators, dual-purpose food storage bags, and food-storage containers.

The containers detect gases that foodsemit when they’re no longer fresh, turningfrom pink to yellow after about eight hours toinform consumers when food has gone bad.

For distributors and retailers,It’sFresh! features the TT Sensor™, atime and temperature indicator thatcan be applied to food products toindicate their freshness. The TT Sensor actsas a countdown clock that starts once thesensor is activated. When the color of thesensor reaches pink, that means the producthas gone past its freshness date.

“It empowers the consumer,” says GregPavett, president of It’sFresh!. “The idea is tocreate technology that works, but is easy touse.”

If it sounds like magic, it’s actually theproduct of five years of intense research,says Pavett, who worked on it with histechnical partner, Johnson Matthey Plc. Thecompany has launched a Web site designed

to educate businesses and consumers abouteasy-to-use solutions to help them keep theirfridge stocked with only the freshest food.

Products from It’sFresh! are alreadyavailable in such international markets asJapan and the United Kingdom, with NorthAmerican rollout plans in development.

“Demonstrations are the most fun,” Pavettsays. “People bring food over and we try itout for them. We get a lot of peopleelbowing their spouses and saying, ‘I toldyou we shouldn’t have given this to thekids’.” n

For information: www.ismyfoodfresh.com

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all it the Wikification of society. Moreand more, Internet denizens are

turning to free-flowing communities of userswho gather around specific topics andaccumulate information as a group, thuscreating an ever-evolving repository ofinteresting data.

Persata was founded in mid-2006 tocreate an Internet-based platform for datacollaboration. Its framework lets it freelycreate, gather, and analyze quantitative,measurable information. From there, data isinput by users, devices, or “data dumps”from third parties.

“There are 50 million blogs in the world,each one about a specific topic,” saysPersata co-founder Michael Noble. “Persatais like a data blog. It’s a way tocommunicate with others in a quantitativeway, rather than a qualitative, text-basedway.”

Noble says individuals and businesseswill contribute data to Persata in order to

leverage the “wisdom of crowds”theory—the idea that the group issmarter than the individual. A userdashboard will display all of thepieces of data in the user’s life orbusiness.

For example, a woman using thesite can see the date of her mostrecent breast cancer diagnosis, heraverage expenses for the month,stock options she’s accumulated, and valueof her home.

Each bit of data joins a “crowd” amongthousands of similar data points, and simpleanalysis and reporting tools are used tomeasure data against that of others.

The goal for the user is to “use theinformation to make better decisions aboutyour life or business,” says Noble.

Persata also boasts businessapplications. “Users will contract withPersata in order to have access to our real-time, customizable database of behavioral

information,” Noble says. “Think of it as areal-time census, constantly changing, thatcan be sliced and diced any which way.”

Persata also can be used as an alternatesearch engine. Instead of returning a millionhits on the search “breast cancer,” Persatareturns the average age of diagnosis, mostcommon chemo drugs, average costs oftreatment and medications, percent of patientswho undergo mastectomies, and so on.

“We pull out the nuggets of information ona specific topic,” says Noble. n

For information: www.persata.com

Pictured (from left): Nancy Shea, Greg Pavett, Carrie Lura

Pictured (from left): David Padgett, Michael Noble

R

Second place

It’sFresh!

C

Third place

Persata

onvenience plus quality: It seems like such a simplecombination, but it’s more elusive than one might think, especiallywhen it comes to food. Michelle Gobricht, an experiencedentrepreneur, was in search of that combination when her dinnergave her the inspiration to go ahead with it.

“I picked up a ‘take-n’-bake’ pizza one night, and I said to mypartner, Carie Mathison, ‘I wish we could get a decent meal thisquickly,’” says Gobrecht, co-founder of Lakeville-based Snap PeaChef Fresh Meals. That wish led to six months of market research tosee if it was a viable idea. “We found out that people like good foodbut don’t always have the time to make good meals.”

Snap Pea works with Jeff LaBeau, a certified executive chef, to planentrées like creamy basil chicken and roasted veggie lasagna, alongwith a selection of sides, salads, breads, and desserts. After

submitting an order by phone oronline, the customer receivesthe full meal, ready to cook attheir convenience. With aquality menu, convenient pickupoptions, and prices not far fromthose in a good restaurant, theword is spreading about Snap Pea. Its first store opened in June2007, doubling as a production facility for Snap Pea pickup sites.Instead of bearing all the cost of pickup sites on its own, Snap Pea isoffering Twin Cities businesses and retailers the opportunity to sharethe costs and rewards by hosting on-site Snap Pea pickups.

“Competing in the Minnesota Cup has paid off already,” saysGobrecht. “We’re already talking to potential funders.” n

For information: www.snap-pea.com

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merican consumers will spend $157.4 billion over theInternet this year, according to technology market research

company Forrester Research. But there’s a wrench in the works thatcould threaten retailers, says Michael F. Ross, director of businessdevelopment for Minnetonka-based Reshare.

“With more than 8 percent of all purchases occurring online, theInternet represents a vast opportunity for manufacturers,” Ross says.“However, two-thirds of them cite channel conflict as the number onereason why they don’t sell online.”

Channel conflict occurs when manufacturers remove their channelpartners by selling their products direct to consumers. Reshare wasestablished to solve that dilemma. The company makes distribution

relationship management (DRM) software, and has the onlypatented channel-management solution that lets manufacturers andbrand owners sell online directly to consumers without circumventingvaluable channel partners.

Reshare’s software—which is effectively working across a wide-range of industries—was developed to help manufacturers sell directlyvia the Internet. It also provides assurances that the site they’re usingfor an online purchase offers full product lines that are authorized bythe manufacturer. Reshare should break the million-dollar revenuebarrier in 2007 and, according to Ross, plans to grow to $50 millionin revenue within five years. n

For information: www.reshare.com

pplying to graduate school can be an ordeal for recentundergraduates. Naiomi Bisram and Erik Eliason decided to

address this tedious process. Their company, uTead, is an onlineservice that provides an academic platform connecting students toapplication resources.

“We found [applying to grad school] was a time-consuming andfrustrating process,” says Bisram. “We were taking a business-planning class, and while most of the ideas in those classes arehypothetical, we thought, why not make it real?”

On the uTead site (www.utead.com), universities will be able topost videos, photos, and podcasts about their programs. Meanwhile,students can access the resources that universities provide, as wellas such application resources as online test banks, storage space foressays, online study courses, and academic networking resources.

“We thought about the trends that will be shaping people’s lives inthe future—higher education, Internet technology, and globalization,”says Bisram. “By giving uTead an international reach, we hope tofind a place within all of those mega-trends.”

The company’s database currently contains information on morethan 4,000 graduate school programs from around the world.

“We think this service could be valuable for undergrads as well,”says Bisram. “Selecting a college is a big job no matter where youare in the process.” n

A

Finalists

Reshare

Snap Pea

Student Winner

uTeadA

C

Pictured (from left): Kevin Krase, Adam Southam

Pictured (from left):Carie Mathison,

Michelle Gobrecht

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wellsfargo.com/biz and make the most of your business today.

© 2007 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC.

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BLEED:8.375x11.25

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Wells Fargo is proud to sponsor the Minnesota Cup and salutes the entrepreneurial spirit of the 505 participants.

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