2011 Finalists
The 2011 Monterey Regional Business Plan Competition received nearly 70 applications of a much higher quality overall than the 60 application received the previous year. The applications came from applicants throughout the tri-county region, from out of the area, and one from out of the country.
Of the 70 applicants who each submitted a one-page business plan, among three categories, 18 applicants were selected to develop and submit 12-page business plans and to present them at the competition final event on May 13, 2011 at the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
The 18 finalists for the 2011 Monterey Bay Regional Business Plan Competition were :
COMPANY NAME City, State URL BUSINESS TYPE
Student Category
JEDEK Marina, CA Customizable Shoes
Ring O' Fire Seaside, Ca Restaurant
SocialAppetite Vancouver, BC Location-Based Social Networking App
Main-Street Category
Mars Hill Coffeehouse Hollister, CA www.marshillcoffeehouse.com Full-service Coffee House
Megan's Living Well Santa Cruz, CA www.meganslivingwell.com Health & Wellness Consumer Products
Utilities Independence Solutions Hollister, CA www.lotuslakehouse.com Utilities
Venture Category
ACSII, Inc. Marina, CA www.ACSII-Inc.com Agricultural Enterprise Software
Brooks Ideas, Inc. Santa Cruz, CA www. brooksideas.com Mobile app learning tool for children
Made In Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA www.MadeinSantaCruz.com Body Heating & Cooling Recovery Pillow
Mosaic Document Solutions San Mateo, CA www.mosaicds.com Web-based document management
Nikoya Foods, Inc. Milpitas, CA www.nikoyafoods.com Poultry Feed
Noli n Nali, LLC Scotts Valley, CA www.nolnnali.com Personal Care Products
People Towels Monterey, CA www.peopletowels.com Personal Towels
Salad Chop, LLC Monterey, CA http://www.saladchopshop.com Restaurant
Solsustech Inc. Aptos, CA www.solsustech.com Food Production Technology
Staff Spring, Inc. Santa Cruz www.staffspring.com Software Tools for HR
Toucan Health Systems, LLC Pebble Beach, CA www.juniperhealth.com Consumer Website for care givers
Watch Technologies, LLC Pebble Beach, CA www.watchtechnologies.com Water Management
2011 Finalist Profiles
ACSII, Inc. Monterey, CA, provides cloud based, SAS software solutions for managing the agricultural enterprise in real time to ensure food safety, operating efficiencies, people and asset management in an unbroken, end-to-end solution, utilizing GPS, GIS and hand-held technologies to communicate to our servers.
PAIN: Currently, agriculture companies are exposed to millions of dollars in losses – many have been driven out of business altogether – due to food-safety failures and product recalls, as well a millions of dollars in lost profits due to operational inefficiencies.
SOLUTION: ACSII eliminates the need for financially devastating produce recalls by carefully managing the planting, watering, fertilizing, and harvesting aspects of an agricultural enterprise while tracking food products to within 10 feet of their source. Our systems and implementations allow an enterprise to significantly reduce administrative costs by over 25 percent.
Brooks Ideas Inc., (C-corp). Because of growing awareness of child development, more parents are seeking parenting tools. However, existing parenting tools are usually available only in books and magazines, and are not easily accessible when needed. Research has identified a gap in the market for such tools on mobile devices, as well as for game-based tools for children.
PAIN: Parents want to give their children the best advantage for development and to better cope with life's challenges. A growing percentage of parents carry a mobile device as an interactive tool for their daily living but the tools that exist do not embrace the mobile generation.
SOLUTION: Brooks Ideas Inc. will create mobile apps and media tools developed by a clinical expert for parents and kids that are skill building and based on child development and current psychological theories. This will help kids and parents reduce stress.
JEDEK, LLC, delivers customizable shoes at affordable prices.
PAIN: 1) High demand for fashionable styles. 2) There is a gap in the market place for affordable, fashionable shoes.
SOLUTION: JEDEK will comply with the needs of consumers by delivering unique fashionable shoes at affordable prices.
Made in Santa Cruz (MISC) is a sole proprietorship owned by Dohna L. Dunderdale, which has a website www.MadeinSantaCruz.com and store on the Wharf in Santa Cruz, CA representing over 100 current local artisans. For over the last 15 years MISC has represented over 680 local businesses in the retail store and provided stable jobs. At least 5 workers have been with Made in Santa Cruz for over 15 years… some employees have met other goals using this for transitional employment, many were with MISC for over 10 years who since got their degrees.
PAIN: Most people need comfort from over work and stress; millions of veterans are suffering for their tremendous gift. Most doctors recommend heat and cool as a remedy for trauma & inflammation.
SOLUTION: The Recovery Pillow is one of the simplest ways to provide comfort with deep heat or cool. Customers report they have reduced their medications by using this natural reedy. The Recovery Pillow offers mobility especially for those using walkers and wheelchairs “no plug required.” Flex Your Power acknowledges our claim “You can directly heat or cool your body not the environment.”
Mars Hill Coffeehouse is a full service coffeehouse and multi-use venue created to be a gathering place for people of all ages and interests. We support artists, musicians, and those in the margins – the poor, the homeless, the hurting, and the abandoned. While Mars Hill is owned and operated by inChrist Church, none of the profits from Mars Hill goes to the church. Any and all profits go to the local and regional charities that help those in the margins.
PAIN: Downtown Hollister is in the process of revitalization. As a small-town, Hollister needs a place where residents and those visiting the area can go to enjoy a good cup of coffee, engage in meaningful conversation, and/or enjoy an arts or music event – a place to participate within the community.
SOLUTION: Mars Hill Coffeehouse operated as a non-profit, aims to provide such a place while at the same time giving back all profits to the local community. The coffeehouse can serve as a local community hub for all things related to the arts and music.
Megan’s Living Well: Live Well Every Day, helping those with a chronic health condition to live happy and productive life. (Sole Proprietor)
PAIN: Aging baby boomers and rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other health conditions has turned chronic illness into the new must-teach demographic. 133, million Americans have a chronic health condition, and just as many individuals are living with – or the caregiver of – someone with a chronic challenge. Companies and individuals are seeking motivation and support to improve quality of life and lower health care costs.
SOLUTION: Megan’s Living Well products are the perfect gift to nurture yourself or to communicate support to someone you care about. MLW increases quality of life, boosts positive outlook, and provides compassion when needed the most. Product lines include motivational cards (adult, children, Spanish), mobile device apps, home décor and domestic goods, novelty and retail goods.
MOSAIC DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS, Web-based construction drawing managed services, leveraging cloud computing. LLC
PAIN: State of California vs. Skanska, Anthony Jones et al then followed by extended civil litigation related to the North Courts, Salinas. Since that difficult project, I have re-read each document, studied every drawing, and dedicated thousands of hours to get the root cause of the issues that impact thousands of other construction projects. How can we keep the tea on the same page? 1) The construction industry is pressed at all sides. Teams can no longer straddle both paper and electronic distribution. 2) Many companies have frozen hiring under a banner “Do more with less…” The burden of managing partial paper systems and incomplete adoption of paperless systems have further reduces productivity. 3) There is a gap in the market place for improvements that reduce costs. 4) Our research shows a high demand for technology products/service that provide a rapid return on investment, collaboration and allow un-tethered productivity. Keeping the information available across the enterprise has become the greatest project risk.
SOLUTION: Mosaic Document Solutions product/service allows a team to remain engaged with constantly changing construction documents. From the moment our product and service is deployed on a project, we become the catalyst to distribution. Our campaign is bottom-up but has quickly opened the eyes of Risk Managers and Legal Counsels serving the construction industry as well. During construction we act as managed service facilitating communication through the integrated content, or eDrawingSet. At closeout we are SaaS with digital archiving of the DrawingSet. We transform teams and redraw the lines of communication by incorporating Social-Technology strategies. Now there is an effective way to be “Green” and “Lean” at the same time.
Nikoya Foods, Inc. has developed an advanced proprietary feed that enables producers to grow healthier poultry, reduces environmental waste and increases poultry yields. Once approved by the FDA, this feed will be produced and sold to poultry producers.
PAIN: Droughts in Australia and Brazil, increased U.S. ethanol production, increased global demands for grains, increased fuel and fertilizer prices have resulted in poultry feed prices increasing over 500 percent in 5 years. These increases have forced smaller poultry producers out of business, caused losses for larger producers, and increased poultry prices for consumers.
SOLUTION: Nikoya Foods offers a high performance proprietary feed that helps small and large poultry producers improve their production efficiency by reducing mortality, feed waste and time to full growth, resulting in healthier poultry and higher profits. We offer a superior feed at the same price by controlling the costs of raw materials, production, and distributing the feed directly to customers.
Noli n Nali, LLC, Natural and organic personal care products for mothers and children. “ Where Nature Meets Nurture”
PAIN: Effects of environmental toxins on our bodies as well as on our environment. Pregnant women and babies are especially sensitive to synthetic chemicals and allergic reactions in children are prevalent. Environmental pollution and waste is rampant. In the wake of the paraben scare and awareness of “toxic burden”, parents are becoming more concerned about what they apply to their children’s skin, as well as to their own.
SOLUTION: We have made the connection: we believe that a healthy body and a healthy planet are related. We offer affordable, award-winning, chemical-free, natural and organic personal care products. Our products are made from pure ingredients, cultivated in life-affirming ways, and uphold the highest standards in the industry. Our customers are able to buy the affordable, non-toxic personal care products they need with the added value of being good stewards of the Earth.
PeopleTowels are an “on-the-go” replacement for paper towels. These reusable personal hand towels, made from patent-pending organic cotton fabric, help to reduce the environmental impact of paper towels. PeopleTowels are the newest addition to the growing category of environmentally friendly consumer products and eco-premiums, and follow on the success of other eco-habits, such as reusable water bottle and cloth grocery bags.
PAIN: 1) There is an increasing demand by consumers and business for simple, inexpensive solutions to help reduce their carbon footprint. 2) The wide spread use of paper towels contribute to deforestation, and result in CO2 emissions, water pollution and landfill waste. 3) Outside of the home there are no environmentally friendly alternatives to paper towels. The current alternative, electric air dryers, produce carbon emissions, are expensive to purchase/install, and raise sanitary issues.
SOLUTION: PEOPLETOWELS is the eco-friendly solution. They are absorbent, yet fast drying, simple to use and carry. If just one in four adults in the U.S. switch to PeopleTowels, they would save enough trees to cover the state of Alaska, reduce enough landfill waste to fill Fenway Park four times, conserve enough water to fill 22,000 Olympic size swimming pools and cut CO2 emissions equivalent to removing 815,00 cars from the roads.
Ring O’ Fire, a partnership company, provides a fun and safe environment for individuals to create their own unique, customized s’mores desserts.
PAIN: 1) It is unsafe and inconvenient for individuals to create bonfires in order to prepare s’mores. 2) There is currently a gap in the marketplace for a s’mores dessert shop. 3) There is a low number of dessert shops that offer customers the ability to customize their own desserts.
SOLUTION: Ring O’ Fire will fulfill the needs of consumers and the gap in the current marketplace by providing a safe, convenient location for individuals to create a customized s’mores dessert.
Salad Chop, LLC fills a long standing niche in the global food chain/franchise market, by filling up the appetites of its consumer’s increasing demand for a fast, fresh, healthy, pesticide free, renewable & varied food option… The Salad.
PAIN: “Fat Fast Food” CONSUMPTION & OBESITY IN THE UNITED STATES HAS BECOME A WELL-PUBLICIZED NEGATIVE PUBLIC HEALTH TREND EPIDEMIC. 1) 2 in 3 Americans are overweight & 1 in 3 is obese. 2) Studies have shown eating as little as two “fat fast food” meals per week can increase the chances of obesity by 50%. 3) The average American eats 3 or more “fat fast food” meals per week. 4) The FDA reported over the next 50 years, the human population is expected to rise to at least 8.6 billion people requiring an additional 3.3 million square miles of land (approx. 20% larger than the country of Brazil) to feed them using current technologies. 5) 38% of the total landmass of the earth is already committed to soil-based agriculture.
SOLUTION: FAST FOOD NICHES DO NOT NEED TO BE UNHEALTHY, LOW QUALITY, OR EVEN RESOURCE DESTRUCTIVE. Salad Chop has created the first known of its kind, farm to plate salad & produce quick service franchise concept. We plan to revolutionize the food industry by showcasing menu items grown & served on location, atop vertical greenhouse rooftop gardens.
SocialAppetite The SocialAppetite team is proud to introduce weev; the first location based social networking application exclusively for universities. Envision this scenario: large lecture halls of 300 peers, crowded libraries of unfamiliar faces – these are a common scenario that university students find themselves in as they enroll in large campuses around the world. While many students will search for opportunities to engage in campus activities and find a sense of community, other students feel disconnected with the large si/e of their schools and long to work with others without arduous scheduling. More and more students interact online with their friend through social networks and yet find themselves in a class or library where they recognize no one.
PAIN: 1) Large classrooms and lecture theaters hinder the ability for new students to meet friends. 2) Students working on schoolwork can’t find nearby tutors and teaching assistants for help. 3) First day orientations are not personal or interactive.
SOLUTION: 1) Improve friend networks on campus to promote student collaboration for social and academic purposes. 2) Quickly find tutors, teaching assistants, or peers for fast and convenient help on assignments. 3) Promote student interaction in the campus community.
Solsustech Incorporated (S-corp) provides a net zero carbon footprint growing systems for fresh, local food that can be grown throughout the year. Solsustech sells its growth system through Got Produce Franchising Inc. (c-Corp).
PAIN: 1) Current farming and distribution methods are not sustainable, and will not supply the growing world population. 2) There is a large learning curve in developing alternative systems. 3) Food safety and health issues are increasing.
SOLUTION: The Solsustech system directly addresses the issue of global food production by producing more food in less space with fewer resources. We combine our smart technology and patented growing systems in a franchise format to create a simple and scalable solution located close to the consumer. Food grown with this system requires less handling and processing, resulting in higher food quality with fewer contaminants.
Staff Spring, Inc. simplifies the hiring process by providing users with intuitive tools that help organizations manage candidate selection, automate custom screening processes, collaborate between stakeholders, automation of interview scheduling, adherence with hiring protocols and legal issues, while protecting against potentially great applicants by mistake.
PAIN: Managing the flow of incoming resumes for potential candidates can be a mind boggling experience which most organizations do completely via email (based on market research). Sifting through candidates and collaborating with internal stakeholders can be daunting and greatly reduce the overall efficiency of the hiring process.
SOLUTION: Staff Spring bridges the gap between stakeholders and candidates by providing custom processes that greatly reduce the time needed to screen applicants, schedule interviews and complete the hiring process while allowing internal resources, job posting boards, recruiters, and stakeholders to work in a centralized portal which can be extended through custom API’s.
Toucan Health Systems, LLC has developed a new consumer website for caregivers, Juniper Health, https://juniperhealth.com/, designed to simplify the complex and confusing job of managing their loved one’s health.
PAIN: Managing all of the healthcare details and paperwork for your family (kids, aging parents, spouse, self) is NOT an easy task. Patients/family members routinely “fall through the cracks” of our healthcare system. Missing crucial tests and health screenings can lead to disability or premature death. Knowing what to do and when, plus finding effective solutions to keep everyone well can be a fulltime job.
SOLUTION: Juniper Health is an on-line platform that lets caregivers establish a health profile (health summary, reminders, key issues with clear-cut action plans) for each of the people they are caring for. The profiles are always available, even if the caregiver changes jobs or health plans, and the printout or e-summaries are designed to quickly bring a doctor up-to-speed with history/status during office visits or emergencies.
Utilities Independence Solutions is a pre-formation “utility company” designing, building and maintaining power, water and waste systems for small scale unregulated applications.
PAIN: Public and private utilities have aged infrastructure and are burdened with increasing pension liabilities. Service connection fees are no longer subsidized and usage rates for power, water and sewer are steadily rising. Consumers want and deserve an alternative to traditional and highly regulated utilities.
SOLUTION: Technology exists now as an alternative for each of these utilities at commercial and residential scales. Utility Independence Solutions (UIS) will bring a systems integration approach to solving this regional, national and global challenge. Localization of power, water and waste will bring greater sustainability to the region and state. AT&T once controlled the phone lines of the USA now we have many options; we envision ending these types of monopolies with the physical utilities, as well. Choice has lowered prices and increased innovation. Our mission is to implement high efficiency cogeneration, portable rainwater captures and advanced waste composting technology for the tri-county residential and commercial markets.
Watch Technologies LLC manufactures equipment and provides systems that precisely monitor, control, and deliver water at lower cost to irrigation districts and farmers facing higher water costs and increased federal and state regulation designed to mandate conservation.
PAIN: 1) Water distribution infrastructure averages 50 years old 2) Staffing and supporting manually operated distribution systems is no longer affordable 3) Water conservation cannot be achieved without real-time data and control 4) Water distribution infrastructure at all levels is not equipped to deliver mandated reporting to state regulators 5) Farming operations lack affordable monitoring and control technology.
SOLUTION: Automating water delivery infrastructure will conserve water, replace manual operations, provide mandated data to regulators, improve irrigation and management efficiency, and reduce costs. At a minimum, installing proven WT monitoring and telemetry solutions will economically satisfy mandated requirements to report water delivery data from thousands of existing turnout locations.
For More Information Call: (831) 582-9718