Rohnert Park-Based Business Plan Competition Aimed at New Ideas Like the Next Google

Two Rohnert Park-based business leaders with decades of combined experience have are vying to make the North Bay bigger and better than what Silicon Valley ever was.

While Michael Newell, the executive director for the Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster, one of the North Bay's business incubators, said it’s a little like comparing apples to oranges, Sonoma County can learn from what the South Bay has already done.

“What’s so good in Silicon Valley is that underpinning of networks — people are connected to other people in this invisible web,” Newell said. “There’s some very interesting entrepreneurs here and new technologies, and I think if we foster that, there could be a very exciting business and vibrant technology community up here.”

Newell has taken the business incubator and partnered with Sonoma State Economics Professor Rob Eyler to start the first northern California business plan competition, dubbed the Seed Round.

“We’re looking for the biggest and the brightest,” Newell said. “We want the next Google, the next Microsoft.”

The Seed Round is open to people of all ages, and Eyler said he’s taken specific interest in candidates. Applicants must submit an executive business summary by March 19, and the elimination will be done in phases after that.

What’s at stake is a cash prize, free rent for a period of time at the Business Cluster, access to angel investors and mentors — all parts of the recipe to start a successful business.

But, Newell said, judges are looking for businesses that are scalable.

“We want people to put forward their idea for the next big thing — innovative entrepreneurs,” he added. “We’re looking for businesses that are going to create more than $5 million in revenue in the first five years.”

The goal is to develop a product that the marketplace needs, and potentially take it nationwide — even global.

“The backbone of our community is made up of small businesses, but that’s not really our goal,” he said.

One example is the Santa Rosa-based technology startup TriVascular, who in 2010 released what’s called the Ovation Abdominal Stent Graft, a device geared towards repairing often-misdiagnosed aortic aneurisms.

“They’ve addressed what we call a “pain point,” Newell said. “Another example I often give is, for example, you have a splitting headache. You’ve had it for weeks, and I have in my pocket a pill that will instantaneously take it away.”

“Now the conversation we’re having is not whether or not you want it, but how much you’re willing to pay for it,” he said.

More information on business plan competition details can be found on the North Bay iHub site.

“All pieces exist here to make a successful business community, the’re just somewhat fragmented,” Eyler said. “We’re going to see a lot more ideas turned into innovation.”

Editor's note: Often business plan competitions are centered in cities with prominent universities. For example, UC Davis hosts annually the Big Boom, and Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley sponsors a yearly business competition as well.

Interested in learning more about the Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster?