Former entrant calls event ‘building block'
Entrepreneurship Workshop guides aspiring business owners
Entrepreneurship Workshop guides aspiring business owners

BY JIM STAFFORD

Published: September 30, 2008

A year ago, Michelle Witt was a graduate student working on her MBA at the University of Tulsa when she heard about the "Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur?” workshop for aspiring business owners.

Curious to learn what it takes to develop a business plan and make a pitch to potential investors, Witt was one of about 150 Oklahoma college students who attended the event.

The Who Wants to be an Entrepreneur Workshop is sponsored annually by i2E and the Oklahoma EPSCoR program. It serves as a starting point for many entrants in the annual Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup Business Plan Competition.

"I was going through my MBA, so I was going through all of these classes, how to write a business plan and run a business, but you never actually see how it's done,” Witt said. "The workshop is really good for that.”

So, Witt joined with another TU student and built a business plan around technology created by TU professor Gavin Manes. They entered the Governor's Cup competition under the corporate name of RedVault.

RedVault won second place in the graduate division of the Governor's Cup, claiming a $10,000 cash award.

Witt has since graduated and is working to commercialize RedVault and the encryption technology.

"I built my business plan off of all that I learned there,” Witt said. "It was kind of the building block for me.”

Witt is among the former Governor's Cup competitors who will return to share their experience at this year's Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur workshop.

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