Think Big

This year, my team participated in and won second place in the Wharton Business Plan Competition, winning $15,000 cash and $10,000 of in-kind services. This was one of the highlights of my first year in business school.


I worked with Marc Montserrat (my learning teammate) and Pitou Devgon (a physician and recent grad) to develop a business plan for a medical device known as PhlebCath. PhlebCath is designed to revolutionize the process of drawing blood from patients by eliminating painful needle sticks. By going through an already-inserted IV, the device will also drive efficiency gains by eliminating wasted time in finding veins for blood drawing. We named our company Next Generation Phlebotomy (phlebotomy is the process of drawing blood).

Over 300 teams submitting business plans in the first round. 25 teams were selected to proceed to the semifinals. 8 teams were then selected for the finals - roughly 4 health care and 4 non-health care teams. This was the first year in the history of the competition that the industry make-up of the final needed to match the industry make-up of the semifinals.

After submitting a 45-page business plan, giving a 20 minute presentation to the judges, and giving a 2-minute elevator pitch to the audience (something I did), we were thrilled to win 2nd place in the competition. We celebrated at Tiffin and ate wonderful Indian food.

See here for the award winners from the competition:
http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu/