A trio of University School students has proven to have a winning concept in their mobile app. Jacob Fakult ’15, Danny Andreini ‘16, and Marc Frankel ’16, took home the top honor at the third annual Business Plan Competition of the Veale Youth Entrepreneurship Forum.  The competition is sponsored by The Veale Foundation and The Burton D. Morgan Foundation.

 

Their first place finish was rewarded with $1,000 in prize money to go towards Vamonos!, an app that saves people time and businesses money by automatically sending a text message when the user is close to a given destination.

 

After winning the US Entrepreneur Cup last month, the students competed against teams from nine other independent schools in the Youth Entrepreneurship Forum, and were selected by three prominent Northeast Ohio entrepreneurs as having the top business plan.

 

Prior to the competition, the teams took part in an executive coaching day at LaunchHouse to finetune their presentations. Professionals affiliated with LaunchHouse, which helps turn ideas into successful companies, gave tips to all the students involved.

 

“During the past three years, we’ve seen tremendous growth in the quality of student ideas, presentations and written business plans,” said US’s Greg Malkin, director of the Young Entrepreneur Institute, an organization that provides program support and curriculum for the Veale Youth Entrepreneurship Forum. “That’s a testament to the great collaboration between the participating teachers, mentors and coaches who are a part of this competition.”

 

The Youth Entrepreneurship Forum started in 2011 in cooperation with US’s Entrepreneur Institute. Honoring the legacy of businessman Tinkham Veale II, it intends to promote entrepreneurship to high school students throughout Northeast Ohio.