We’ll announce the winners at an awards luncheon on April 17^th at 11:30 AM in the Clark Student Center at Midwestern State University.  This luncheon is open to the public.  The lunch menu is steak and all the fixings!  Cost is a mere $20 per person.  You can purchase tickets by calling Kathy McGowan at 397-4002.  Before the big day, though, we’d like you to learn a bit more about each finalist.  Today’s featured finalist is Keeno’s Steakhouse Jerky.

Keeno’s Steakhouse Jerky just opened at 4716 Old Jacksboro Highway, approximately three blocks north of Southwest Parkway. Capitalizing on a popular trend in the beef snacks industry, Keeno’s Steakhouse Jerky is a beef jerky emporium. The store will be offering Keeno’s four signature beef jerky flavors, and will also showcase of over thirty exotic jerky products from all parts of the country, including venison, elk, buffalo, pheasant, turkey, and even smoked king salmon jerky from Alaska. A portion of all proceeds go to Christian Youth Ministries in Wichita Falls.

The sport of mudding and off road driving has exploded.   Hillbilly Heaven Extreme Offroading, is a 1,000 acre all terrain driving track featuring side by side mud bogging, a 7 acre free style mud pit, a bounty hole, ATV mud pits, ATV barrel racing, rock crawling courses, and hundreds of acres of off road trails and the Hillbilly Angels.  There is also an enclosed 45,000 square foot facility and arena where live entertainment can be enjoyed.  Hillbilly Heaven Extreme Offroading also plans to host other events in conjunction with ARKLATEX, TORA, and TCCRA.  Mud bogging and offroading has gone from back yard mud holes to events that host upwards of 40,000 people in a weekend. Led by the Davis family, Hillbilly Heaven’s goal is to provide a racer and fan-friendly facility. 

Look for the shiny gold, purple or red mylar lid topper in Wal-Mart or United Grocery and you will have discovered “Eagle Flats” picante.  A gourmet look and taste at a competitive price.   As a woman owned small business located in Vernon, Texas, it is time to expand.  My discovery has been the Work Services Corp in Wichita Falls, where individuals with disabilities are employed.  They skillfully apply the special packaging by hand.  I am proud to work with such an organization. The expansion will be to set up a processing plant in Wichita Falls for  ”Eagle Flats”  picante and utilize the talent and assets available for future employment.

The six finalists are:

Austin-Paige/Eagle Flats
Hillbilly Heaven
Keeno Steakhouse Jerky
Night Logos
Two Sisters Bakery
Wee-Chi-Tah BMX

 The next step for the finalists is an oral presentation to the judges on April 16^th.  The judges pick the winners based on those presentations, and the winners will be announced at an April 17^th luncheon at MSU.  Call 397-4002 to purchase tickets for the luncheon.

 To assist the finalists, we’ll conduct seminars on how to give an effective pitch on Thursday, March 21^st at 11:30 AM and Monday, March 25^th at 7:00 PM in Room 189 of the Dillard College of Business.  During the session we’ll share both tips for success and common mistakes made during entrepreneurial pitches.  Although the focus will be on getting the finalists ready for their time in front of the judges, the sessions are open to the public and anyone needing to raise money from investors could benefit from the session.

The first option is what I call (and I’m probably the only person that uses that term) the top down approach.  By that I mean figuring out how big the market is and then thinking about what percentage of the market you could reasonably capture.  For example, a company I once consulted with had a product targeted at medical school students.  One source says there are about 75,000 medical school students in North America.  If the firm estimates that 1 in 10 students will buy the product each year then it has an annual sales estimate of 7,500 units.  Of course, the question is whether a 1% or 10% or any other percentage is realistic.  Sometimes you can find a similar product or situation that might clue you in but often it’s a guess.  Your marketing strategy should support why you think you’ll achieve a given amount of market penetration.  In case you were wondering about the company targeting medical school students – it never got off the ground.  Unfortunately, the company was too early in the smart phone app world and the founder turned his attention to other ventures.

The second option is the bottom up approach where you ask yourself:  how many “widgets” do I think I’ll sell a day (or a week or even a month).  Then you add the numbers up and that’s your annual sales projection.  You get these numbers several ways –watching similar businesses to see how many customers a day they have; figuring out how many customers a day you can handle given your start-up conditions; or reading about similar businesses.  What this technique sometimes uncovers is a mismatch between what you “hope” you can sell and what you can reasonably handle on a daily basis.

In short, the hardest parts of the financials are the sales projections (actually revenue, because you have to factor the price too).  What you’re hoping for is a situation like Elevation Dock enjoyed.  The company used a crowd funding platform called Kickstarter to sell its product.  Although the money raised via Kickstarter is technically a “donation,” Elevation Dock and others effectively use the platform to pre-sell its product, promising to send a certain amount of “free” products for a given donation level once the company actually begins production.  Elevation Dock had hoped to get pre-sales worth $75,000.  Instead it got almost $1,500,000.  Not a bad start!