1. 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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IIDDEEAASS
Year-Three Roundup:
Under the direction of founders Scott Litman and
Dan Mallin, the Minnesota Cup competition has
grown into a full-time resource for entrepreneurs.
The Top Five
From curing the obesity epidemic, to leveraging
the 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.
2. s every entrepreneur
knows, starting a busi-
ness isn’t a venture for lone
wolves. Every successful start-up
contains the sweat, creativity,
and energy of lots of people, and
even the best ideas can use a
boost.
Now in its third year, the Cup
provides a competitive forum by
which entrepreneurs can not only
vie for prize money ($25,000 in
seed capital for the winning
entry), but also gain access to a
wealth of tools, resources, and a
process that helps entrants write
better business plans.
“We wanted to find
entrepreneurs who we felt were
going to be the next big success
stories in the state,” says Scott
Litman, co-founder of the
Minnesota Cup along with Dan
Mallin. “We also hoped that in
doing so, we would introduce the business
community, investors, lawyers, accountants, and
marketing professionals to these entrepreneurs to
help them build their businesses.”
Businesses have responded in increasing
numbers—in the Cup’s three-year history, it has
drawn almost 1,800 entrants. And with this
volume has come impressive variety.
“We see everything from farmers coming up with
new implements, to business plans in the
biosciences, retail, child care, education, and Web
arena,” 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. After
seeing how hard Cup entrants worked to create
business contacts, the two decided to help them
expand their networks by building what amounts to
a MySpace-like network for the local
entrepreneurial community.
“We wanted to extend some of the benefits of the
Minnesota Cup to an audience beyond the semi-
finalist and finalist,” Litman says. “This would
provide more visibility to all Minnesota
entrepreneurs; creating access to tools to use
through the year as they build their ventures.”
2 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
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 Minnesota
entrepreneurs tools to build their
ventures yearlong.
Groundbreaking
Developments
Additional Minnesota Cup
sponsors 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
3. Litman says companies use GetGo to
invite colleagues, advisors, investors, and
partners into their networks where a secure,
collaborative environment exists for blogs,
forums, shared files, emails, and calendars.
Another valuable resource being offered to
Cup entrants is the James J. Hill
Reference Library’s HillSearch
tool. HillSearch offers numerous resources,
many of which are not available elsewhere
on the Internet, that can help broaden and
sharpen business plans.
“At least 4,000 entrepreneurs a year use
some part of our HillSearch portfolio to start
and grow their business,” says Jim Poole,
the library’s membership development
manager.
All told, the Hill library helps nearly half a
million budding and growing businesses
each year. That’s not surprising, considering
the deep access points available, including
more than 14,000,000 U.S. and Canadian
companies, nearly 6,000 trade periodicals,
1,200 newspapers, 10,000 e-books,
Another resource for Cup competitors is the
CEO Roundtable, a nonprofit
organization that assembles CEOs from fast-
growing companies to share ideas and
solutions. The experience in the CEO
Roundtable is a great boon to Cup semi-
finalists, who turn to the group for
mentorship and coaching.
“Our mentors met with 15 of the semi-
finalists this year to provide feedback and
advice on their business plans,” says John
Stavig, director of the Gary Holmes Center for
Entrepreneurship, which works with both the
Minnesota Cup and CEO Roundtable. “Our
mentors see this as a means of giving back
and learning about the exciting new
businesses being developed in Minnesota.”
Another valuable helping hand for Cup
contestants is the Early Stage Investors
Network (ESIN), a group of nearly 80
local angel investors who meet eight times
annually to review business plans and hear
entrepreneurs’ pitches.
“We help give them a place to have their
business plans screened by a group of
knowledgeable investors, and potentially
present to a meeting of 20 to 30 private
investors,” says Michael Moore, who runs
ESIN and is on the Minnesota Cup review
board. “With the advent of the Minnesota
Cup and GetGoMN.org, participants become
part of the early-stage community, receiving
feedback, and making contacts that might
lead to funding or other relationships.”
With that multifaceted group at their
disposal, it’s no wonder entrepreneurs are
clamoring for the Minnesota Cup. Mallin and
Litman plan to make the competition even
stronger in coming years.
“Our goal is to keep growing the program,”
says Mallin. “Next year, we will work to add
more partners and provide more help to our
entrants. We’ll focus on awareness, so that
more entrepreneurs can find out and
participate in the Minnesota Cup.”
If you need proof that participating in
the Minnesota Cup can provide an
invaluable boost to a growing business,
just ask Doug and Lisa Powell.
The Powells are the founders of
HealthSimple, a creator of educational
and life-management tools for children
and adults living with Type 1 or Type 2
diabetes. Type 1Tools, the company’s
flagship line of products, was created in
2004 after the Powells’ daughter was
diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Today,
Health care providers and patients
around the world can access the tools.
The company was a finalist in 2005’s
Minnesota Cup, and that status led to a
stronger, more secure company.
“Doug and I knew we had a good
idea, and we certainly had passion,”
says Lisa Powell, “but through the Cup
we were able to develop a team of
lawyers, accountants, and MBA-trained
consultants that both validated and
super-charged our business.”
HealthSimple recently completed an
acquisition deal with McNeil Nutritionals,
a Ft. Washington, Pa.-based Johnson &
Johnson-owned global marketer of
nutritional products. Lisa Powell says the
Minnesota Cup was “instrumental” in
helping complete the deal with McNeil
Nutritionals, which plans to expand
HealthSimple’s products and make them
more broadly available. “Competing in
the Minnesota Cup was an incredibly
valuable experience,” Powell says.
HHEEAALLTTHHSSIIMMPPLLEE
No doubt you’ve seen them driving in
their black-and-white VW Beetles,
wearing their short-sleeved white dress
shirts. The ubiquity of Geek Squad in
the computer repair industry belies the
fact that the company has existed
barely a decade.
Founded by Robert Stephens in 1994,
Geek Squad started as a one-man show,
with Stephens biking between repair jobs
around the University of Minnesota
campus. The company’s reputation—
and its quirky image—was quickly
established, and in 2002, the company
was purchased by Richfield-based Best
Buy. Today, the company employs more
than 15,000 technicians worldwide who
handle not just installations, but any
home IT problems.
The Minnesota Historical Society even
added the unmistakable Geek Squad
uniform to its permanent collection in
2000.
Geek Squad continues to streamline its
operation by offering 24-hour remote
computer support, allowing online agents
to log on remotely to the customer’s PC
and perform many of the same services
as the customer would get from in-home
or in-store professionals, but with a
greater level of convenience.
The future might hold even greater
things for Geek Squad. In Florida, Best
Buy and Office Depot are involved in a
trial partnership, putting Geek Squad
“precincts” and products in 11 Office
Depot stores. That could potentially
expand Geek Squad’s presence to more
than 1,000 Office Depot stores.
EENNTTRREEPPRREENNEEUURR
OOFF TTHHEE YYEEAARR AAWWAARRDD
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 3
4. 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 Almen
NAME:Quiescent: A sleep
Disorder Screening
Device
TEAM: Paul Bellefleur, Andy
Grund, Jeff Saunders,
Bill Hayes
NAME:PodCom DotBiz
TEAM: Eric Chiles, Venk Reddy
NAME:LessonBites
TEAM: Michelle Courtright
Bjork, Mark Fawcett
NAME:Romeo & Juliet Shops
TEAM: Willetta DeYoung
NAME:EDP Textiles: Digital-
printed textiles
TEAM: Nathan Dungan,
Pamela Diamond, Christi
Cardenas, Art Berman
NAME:Share Save Spend
TEAM: Timothy Everett
NAME: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 Griggs
NAME: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 LaPointe
NAME:BrightGreen FOG
mileage system and
hybrid Vehicle
TEAM: Elizabeth Levang, Sandy
Maclean
NAME:The Miscarriage Clinic
TEAM: Maureen McKay
NAME:Optimistic Outcomes
TEAM: Russell Morfitt, Dale
Cook
NAME:EduCalm, LLC
TEAM: Michael Murray-John
NAME:Equilateral Industries:
Icoshelter
TEAM: Philip Nelson
NAME: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 Shah
NAME:MyMeds: Medication
records
TEAM: David Shuler
NAME:Double Play: Sports-
team investment trust
TEAM: 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 Olson
NAME:HelpMeTy.com
TEAM: Josh Brock
NAME:Lifestyle Martial Arts
TEAM: Nick Beste, Kevin
Carlow
NAME:Alumni Advisor
TEAM: Kyle Henderson
NAME:Manual Galaxy
MINNESOTA CUP SEMIFINALISTS
STUDENT FINALISTS
“We believe that much of the success of Riverside Bank was
because of our work with entrepreneurs. Their businesses plans
were sometimes inadequate, so we endowed this foundation
with money that would be given to people so they could work
on business plans and improve their chances for success. I’m
pleased to see the progress of the Minnesota Cup. It’s going to
be exciting for the people of Minnesota.”
—Dave Cleveland, co-founder, Riverside Bank
Dave and his wife Carolyn endowed a Carlson School of
Management program to fund the Minnesota Cup prize money.
5. ike America’s waistlines, the attention
devoted to our obesity epidemic is
growing by the day. And people are
realizing that surgery and gimmick diets are
not the answer. John Montague and Dr.
James Levine, founders of Muve, are
working to find an answer.
Based on a groundbreaking study on
obesity from the Mayo Clinic, the two plan
on using their company to commercialize
products and services with the best chance
to cure the obesity epidemic.
Those products include a mobile, wearable
device used to track body movement and
convert the data to calories and energy
burned; a software application that
synchronizes body-movement data with a
computer; and an online network focused on
wellness and weight loss.
The seed for Muve was planted in 1995,
after the Mayo Clinic—prompted by a phone
call from President Clinton—embarked on a
10-year study to determine the causes and
identify cures for the worldwide obesity
epidemic. Muve was founded early in 2007
to commercialize the breakthrough
programs, technology, and tools that
resulted from this study.
Montague and Levine found that there was
a wealth of data at Mayo regarding obesity,
but, as Montague points out, “they didn’t
have a vision or plan to commercialize it.
For me, it was like assembling all of the
pieces and determining the best way to
construct a puzzle.”
Muve’s target customers are overweight
adults and children who are “desk-
sentenced”—people who are sitting for a
majority of the day.
Muve’s goal is to produce a small digital
device called Gruve that records a person’s
every movement and calculates how many
calories are burned. Treadmill desks, a
fitness book, clothing, branded bottled water,
nutritional supplements, and health
consulting also are part of the company’s
planned product line.
“Our products and services will help
educate, motivate, and support their journey
of weight loss and management,” says
Montague.
Muve plans to open a Minneapolis office in
October 2007 and then commence efforts to
raise capital. The company’s business plan
calls for raising $500,000 to launch
development of hardware and software.
In early 2008, the team hopes to raise an
additional $2 million to complete
development and testing.
Muve, says Montague, is the first
scientifically researched and validated
solution to enable sustainable and healthy
weight loss.
The company’s core offering is an
integrated solution that includes an online
weight-loss program and a mobile device to
support it. The company is aiming for
profitability by 2011.
Montague left his former company to found
Muve, partly because he wanted to be part of
an enterprise that would bring out the
passion he felt he owed to his work.
“I was losing my sense of passion and
purpose,” he says. “With this new venture,
my sense of purpose and passion is so
intense that I have a new problem—I can’t
sleep.”
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 5
Muve founders John Montague (left) and James
Levine are creating devices and products to combat
the obesity epidemic.
L
First place
Muve
6. emember the batteries that would
display a color indicating how much
life was left in them? Wouldn’t it be nice to
have a similar indicator for food freshness—
without the peril of having to smell or taste
something unpleasant?
Based in Minneapolis since 2005,
It’sFresh! offers a line of products designed to
help consumers and retailers determine
whether their food is as it should be. The
company’s consumer line consists of
adhesive food freshness indicators, dual-
purpose food storage bags, and food-
storage containers.
The containers detect gases that foods
emit when they’re no longer fresh, turning
from pink to yellow after about eight hours to
inform consumers when food has gone bad.
For distributors and retailers,
It’sFresh! features the TT Sensor™, a
time and temperature indicator that
can be applied to food products to
indicate their freshness. The TT Sensor acts
as a countdown clock that starts once the
sensor is activated. When the color of the
sensor reaches pink, that means the product
has gone past its freshness date.
“It empowers the consumer,” says Greg
Pavett, president of It’sFresh!. “The idea is to
create technology that works, but is easy to
use.”
If it sounds like magic, it’s actually the
product of five years of intense research,
says Pavett, who worked on it with his
technical partner, Johnson Matthey Plc. The
company has launched a Web site designed
to educate businesses and consumers about
easy-to-use solutions to help them keep their
fridge stocked with only the freshest food.
Products from It’sFresh! are already
available in such international markets as
Japan and the United Kingdom, with North
American rollout plans in development.
“Demonstrations are the most fun,” Pavett
says. “People bring food over and we try it
out for them. We get a lot of people
elbowing their spouses and saying, ‘I told
you we shouldn’t have given this to the
kids’.” I
For information: www.ismyfoodfresh.com
6 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
all it the Wikification of society. More
and more, Internet denizens are
turning to free-flowing communities of users
who gather around specific topics and
accumulate information as a group, thus
creating an ever-evolving repository of
interesting data.
Persata was founded in mid-2006 to
create an Internet-based platform for data
collaboration. Its framework lets it freely
create, gather, and analyze quantitative,
measurable information. From there, data is
input by users, devices, or “data dumps”
from third parties.
“There are 50 million blogs in the world,
each one about a specific topic,” says
Persata co-founder Michael Noble. “Persata
is like a data blog. It’s a way to
communicate with others in a quantitative
way, rather than a qualitative, text-based
way.”
Noble says individuals and businesses
will contribute data to Persata in order to
leverage the “wisdom of crowds”
theory—the idea that the group is
smarter than the individual. A user
dashboard will display all of the
pieces of data in the user’s life or
business.
For example, a woman using the
site can see the date of her most
recent breast cancer diagnosis, her
average expenses for the month,
stock options she’s accumulated, and value
of her home.
Each bit of data joins a “crowd” among
thousands of similar data points, and simple
analysis and reporting tools are used to
measure data against that of others.
The goal for the user is to “use the
information to make better decisions about
your life or business,” says Noble.
Persata also boasts business
applications. “Users will contract with
Persata in order to have access to our real-
time, customizable database of behavioral
information,” Noble says. “Think of it as a
real-time census, constantly changing, that
can be sliced and diced any which way.”
Persata also can be used as an alternate
search engine. Instead of returning a million
hits on the search “breast cancer,” Persata
returns the average age of diagnosis, most
common chemo drugs, average costs of
treatment and medications, percent of patients
who undergo mastectomies, and so on.
“We pull out the nuggets of information on
a specific topic,” says Noble. I
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
7. onvenience plus quality: It seems like such a simple
combination, but it’s more elusive than one might think, especially
when it comes to food. Michelle Gobricht, an experienced
entrepreneur, was in search of that combination when her dinner
gave her the inspiration to go ahead with it.
“I picked up a ‘take-n’-bake’ pizza one night, and I said to my
partner, Carie Mathison, ‘I wish we could get a decent meal this
quickly,’” says Gobrecht, co-founder of Lakeville-based Snap Pea
Chef Fresh Meals. That wish led to six months of market research to
see if it was a viable idea. “We found out that people like good food
but don’t always have the time to make good meals.”
Snap Pea works with Jeff LaBeau, a certified executive chef, to plan
entrées like creamy basil chicken and roasted veggie lasagna, along
with a selection of sides, salads, breads, and desserts. After
submitting an order by phone or
online, the customer receives
the full meal, ready to cook at
their convenience. With a
quality menu, convenient pickup
options, and prices not far from
those in a good restaurant, the
word is spreading about Snap Pea. Its first store opened in June
2007, doubling as a production facility for Snap Pea pickup sites.
Instead of bearing all the cost of pickup sites on its own, Snap Pea is
offering Twin Cities businesses and retailers the opportunity to share
the costs and rewards by hosting on-site Snap Pea pickups.
“Competing in the Minnesota Cup has paid off already,” says
Gobrecht. “We’re already talking to potential funders.” I
For information: www.snap-pea.com
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 7
merican consumers will spend $157.4 billion over the
Internet this year, according to technology market research
company Forrester Research. But there’s a wrench in the works that
could threaten retailers, says Michael F. Ross, director of business
development for Minnetonka-based Reshare.
“With more than 8 percent of all purchases occurring online, the
Internet represents a vast opportunity for manufacturers,” Ross says.
“However, two-thirds of them cite channel conflict as the number one
reason why they don’t sell online.”
Channel conflict occurs when manufacturers remove their channel
partners by selling their products direct to consumers. Reshare was
established to solve that dilemma. The company makes distribution
relationship management (DRM) software, and has the only
patented channel-management solution that lets manufacturers and
brand owners sell online directly to consumers without circumventing
valuable channel partners.
Reshare’s software—which is effectively working across a wide-
range of industries—was developed to help manufacturers sell directly
via the Internet. It also provides assurances that the site they’re using
for an online purchase offers full product lines that are authorized by
the manufacturer. Reshare should break the million-dollar revenue
barrier in 2007 and, according to Ross, plans to grow to $50 million
in revenue within five years. I
For information: www.reshare.com
pplying to graduate school can be an ordeal for recent
undergraduates. Naiomi Bisram and Erik Eliason decided to
address this tedious process. Their company, uTead, is an online
service that provides an academic platform connecting students to
application resources.
“We found [applying to grad school] was a time-consuming and
frustrating process,” says Bisram. “We were taking a business-
planning class, and while most of the ideas in those classes are
hypothetical, we thought, why not make it real?”
On the uTead site (www.utead.com), universities will be able to
post videos, photos, and podcasts about their programs. Meanwhile,
students can access the resources that universities provide, as well
as such application resources as online test banks, storage space for
essays, online study courses, and academic networking resources.
“We thought about the trends that will be shaping people’s lives in
the future—higher education, Internet technology, and globalization,”
says Bisram. “By giving uTead an international reach, we hope to
find a place within all of those mega-trends.”
The company’s database currently contains information on more
than 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 you
are in the process.” I
A
Finalists
Reshare
Snap Pea
Student Winner
uTead
A
C
Pictured (from left):
Kevin Krase, Adam Southam
Pictured (from left):
Carie Mathison,
Michelle Gobrecht
