making a business plan
Making It
Making It
- On Immersion: A Non-Sequitor
An aside on player immersion in games and GMing styles. - The First Few Months
Creating a work environment and initial worries for your company. - Getting Back and Getting Started
Finding backing for a company and beginning work. - Planning is Essential
Creating a business plan. - The Concept and Getting Up the Nerve
Taking the first step in starting an RPG company.
MiamiHerald.com: Business Plan Challenge
- People's Pick: Doggy-Duo
Never underestimate pet appeal -- or school spirit. The Barry University grads behind Doggy-Duo, a leash that lets you walk two pooches at the same time tangle-free, won this year's "People's Pick" award with 1,442 out of 4,438 votes. - Third Place: Get It and Give It
Open your wallet or purse. If it contains an unused gift card -- say that last 75 cents you never managed to shed at Wal-Mart -- this year's third place winner of The Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge may have a solution for you. - Second Place: Wheelchairtravel.us
Nearly 50 million Americans have a physical disability, and about 10 million depend on wheelchairs or other mobility devices. But when it comes to providing quality service to this important segment, the hospitality industry sometimes falls flat. - First Place: The Allergy-Free Shop
As the mother of two children who suffer from food allergies, Jennifer Herskowitz would spend hours at the grocery store -- scrutinizing labels for dairy, peanut or soy ingredients that might lead to hives or worse. - And the winners are...
Our prospective entrepreneurs are a diverse group, but they have one thing in common: Their business plans are about solving problems. - Enter the 10th Annual Business Plan Challenge
Dreamers of the world, this is the chance you've been waiting for. If you've got an idea for a business you think would be a great money-making enterprise -- and you live in South Florida -- enter our 10th Annual Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge. - Fledgling firms take heartening steps
In the life cycle of a new company, there are milestones that are just as important as the first time a baby takes her first steps. - First place: ScriptAlert searching for angels
When Jonathan Coffman and Dan Didier submitted their plan for ScriptAlert last year, the judges were enamored by the idea that promised to save lives and reduce medical costs. - Second place: Pegasus Thruster needs investors
Marine cinematographer Robert Baldwin recently finished jetting beneath the waters off the Florida Keys with a Pegasus Thruster strapped to his scuba tank when he made this prediction about the device. - Third place: Sleep-Umzzz idea dormant
Sleep-Umzzz took third place last year offering grown-ups a chance to do what they used to do in kindergarten: nap. - People's choice: CD Invites created winning video
For the first time last year, we asked our finalists to produce short video pitches for their ideas and asked our readers to vote on them. The clear victor in that cyber-popularity contest was CD Invites of Miami Beach. - A look back at last year's winners
Click the links to the right to read how last year's Business Plan Challenge winners have progressed. - First Place | Dish Rags
First place winner wants you to dress up your dishes. Don't blush, but your satellite TV dish is naked. Why else would two cable veterans be trying to cover it up?Tony Bello and Joseph Reid are the creators of Dish Rags - fitted cloth covers that hide the 18-inch contraptions without interfering with reception.But it is what's printed on those rags that earned the company first place in this year's Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge. - Melissa Krinzman
Krinzman is the managing director of Venture Architects, a business plan development firm for private companies seeking investment capital. The firm has helped more than 400 companies raise some $350 million since 1998. Prior to launching Venture Architects, Krinzman was president of Tyber USA, a subsidiary of a European fabric manufacturer and fashion company. Krinzman also helped launch three national nonprofit organizations. She currently serves as a board member of the Miami Children's Museum and Locust Projects. She has a degree in English and American studies from Tufts University. - Gregg Fields
Fields covered the South Florida economy for nearly 20 years for The Miami Herald. He heads the master's in business journalism program at Florida International University, where he is an associate professor. Fields was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in the 2005-06 academic year at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, where he also earned a master's degree in financial journalism. He also has a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where his concentration was public policy economics. - Jonathan Coffman
Last year's Business Plan Challenge winner, Coffman is director of Health Sciences at South University in West Palm Beach. He also teaches genetics, microbiology and virology as an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University and Barry University. In 2006, he founded Planet Vision Eyecare in Greenacres. He also is involved in sales and marketing of DayStar Properties in Jaco Beach, Costa Rica. Coffman has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Tennessee, Memphis Colleges of Medicine, and an MBA from Nova University's Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship. - James Champion
Champion is the founder, president and chief executive of The Champion Services Group, a human resources and management consulting firm. An entrepreneur for more than 25 years, Champion also held executive positions at Ryder System, Merrill Lynch, the U.S. Department of Labor and Chase Manhattan Bank. He's on the board of several community organizations, including the Jackson Memorial Foundation. He has a master's degree in liberal studies from the University of Miami and a psychology degree from Alabama A&M University. - Fernando Capablanca
Capablanca is the founder, president and chief executive of Union Credit Bank of Miami and has been in banking for more than 40 years. Prior to UCB, he was president and CEO of Banco de Crèdito e Inversiones of Chile and the Miami office of Banco Exterior de los Andes y de España. He has served as president of the Florida International Bankers Association, where he remains an active member. He has also served as co-chairman of the International Bankers Advisory Board of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. He is the current president of the Cuban Banking Study Group. He holds an MBA from Harvard's School of Business and a bachelor's degree New York University. - Diane Bowers
Bowers is the founding partner of Paladin Global Partners, a boutique consulting firm in Fort Lauderdale that specializes in helping businesses raise capital. Prior to founding Paladin, Bowers spent more than 30 years working as a senior executive and consultant to Fortune 100 companies. She is president of the Florida Angel Network and vice president of the Gold Coast Venture Capital Association board. A frequent lecturer on angel investing and entrepreneurship, Bowers graduated from New York University and has an MBA in corporate finance. - Tie for Third | TurnkeyPower and ResTrust
<h2>TURNKEYPOWER</h2>Sitting in the dark after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma knocked out power to his Coral Gables home, Gary Urban decided to come up with a semi-permanent solution to what he fears will be a semi-regular problem: post-storm blackouts.