For Matt Geiger, it was a scoring error that could have affected the outcome of a crucial basketball game. For Kris Swanberg, it was an ice cream maker received as a wedding present that sparked an interest in creating unique flavors. For Lisa Martinez, it was a conversation about the lack of online news sources targeting Chicago’s lesbian community.

These were among the inspirations that led 55 teams involving DePaul students to become entrepreneurs and enter Launch DePaul, the university’s annual new venture competition for businesses and non-profits sponsored by the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul. Five teams—including those led by Geiger, Swanberg and Martinez—made it into finals, where they presented their business plans to a panel of entrepreneur judges convened at DePaul’s College of Commerce this spring.

The teams, which were required to be led by students but could include alumni and others, vied for a total of $10,000 in cash, $8,500 in legal services donated by the Chicago law firm Cummins and Associates, as well as office software provided by Microsoft. The ventures were judged on their viability, likelihood for growth and potential to create value for founders and the community. Based on these criteria, the judges were free to divide the prize money and services in any way they believed would best benefit the entrepreneurs.

The finalists in the four-month competition included ventures about to debut as well as those already launched and ready for growth.

Hoop Book Live

Matt Geiger, a finance major at DePaul, and his business partner, Andy Dold, an information technology professional who was Geiger’s basketball coach at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, Mich., won the top prize in the competition’s for-profit division, taking home $5,000 in cash and $500 in legal services for their venture, Hoop Book Live. The duo have developed a patent-pending, easy-to-use software program for maintaining basketball scorebooks to replace the error-prone and time-consuming handwritten scorebooks of game play and statistics that most high school and college coaches currently keep. The venture launched in January.

The idea for the business was sparked by an incident that happened in 2008 during a key high school basketball game in which Geiger, then a high school senior, played and Dold coached. One scorekeeper recorded four fouls and a second scorekeeper tallied five involving a player on the rival team, who would have faced removal after five fouls, Geiger explained. "They ended up in an argument and the fans started yelling, ‘Get that kid out of the game!’ They kept the player in and we almost lost. Andy and I later thought, ‘this could happen anywhere.’ "

Avid basketball fans, Geiger said he and Dold are excited to start a business that involves the sport. "Every entrepreneur hopes to start a business they are passionate about, and Andy and I have found that," Geiger said.

Nice Cream

First runner-up in the for-profit category was Kris Swanberg, who will graduate this spring with a masters degree in early childhood education from DePaul’s School of Education. Launched a year and a half ago, Swanberg’s venture, Nice Cream, a small-batch, seasonal handcrafted ice cream business, began with an ice cream-making blender attachment she received as a wedding gift, which sparked "an obsession with making different flavors,’’ Swanberg said. She shared her ice cream blends with family and friends and eventually with the owner of Green Grocer, an independent organic grocery store in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood where she often bought ingredients. Green Grocer began selling Swanberg’s creations, and after Swanberg was laid off from her teaching job, she devoted herself to ice cream-making full time. She turned to the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center for guidance on how to manage the business, added a business partner, Annie Gomberg, and moved ice cream-making operations to a commercial bakery space. "I started out solo and was a little lost," Swanberg said. "The biggest impact DePaul has had on me is that I went from making ice cream to running a business."

Nice Cream is now carried in 16 Chicago-area grocery stores. Through a DePaul contact—David Spear, a DePaul alumnus who is the Midwest Local Product Forager for Whole Foods—the brand debuted in April at the Whole Foods in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.

Swanberg said the secret to her success is the unique local organic ingredients that she mixes into her limited edition ice creams and the growing number of "foodies" seeking delicacies that are both sophisticated and sustainable. Each season Nice Cream offers four new flavors. Past ingredients have included honey from bees housed at the Garfield Park Conservatory, stout from Goose Island Brewery, and pies, cakes and cookies from Chicago eateries, such as Sweet Cakes Bakery and Swim café. "For $8, you can buy a piece of Chicago representing local breweries, bakeries and growers," Swanberg told the Launch DePaul judges. In the Launch DePaul competition, she was awarded $2,000 plus $1,500 worth of legal services to grow her business.

Redeal.Me

Brothers Ameet and Ankeet Mehta’s business, Redeal.Me, was chosen second runner-up in the competition’s for-profit category. The Facebook application is designed to allow students to buy, sell or trade textbooks, video games and DVDs with people from their own college or university for cash. Ameet, a business student at DePaul, and Ankeet, a DePaul alumnus, said they created the site in response to college student demand. "Students are tired of paying a lot for books—it’s expensive and you often only get 50 percent back" when selling used books back to campus book stores, Ameet told the judges. The venture will be supported by campus-area business advertising sent via text messages to students who sign up and conduct transactions using Redeal.Me. The Mehtas were awarded $500 in legal services for their venture, which they plan to launch this summer.

Sunrise Center North

The top prize in the non-profit/social venture track of the competition went to Elspeth Stanzil for Sunrise Center North, a non-profit organization she co-founded in Coal City, Ill. to provide horseback riding lessons and equine-assisted activities for people with special needs. Stanzil, who is studying environmental education as a student at DePaul’s School for New Learning, founded Sunrise Center North with a friend, Kris Montrella, who had run a similar organization in St. Anne, Ill. They chose to open the new facility in Coal City because there were no such services available for 30 miles. "I’ve always loved horses and I love to be around children," said Stanzil, who has volunteered at therapeutic horseback riding programs since 2005. Stanzil and Montrella plan to expand the center’s staff and extend its services to seniors and war veterans. The judges awarded $2,500 in cash and $500 in legal fees to further the venture.

The L Stop

First runner-up in the nonprofit category was The L Stop, a website for Chicago-area lesbian news and events designed by Lisa Martinez, a student at DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Cinema, and her business partners Vivian Gonzalez and Ashley LaBere. While there are a number of local websites that serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Martinez told the judges, L Stop would be the only site in the city dedicated solely to lesbian issues, which could be attractive for advertisers. "Our site will have 100 percent lesbian-related content, rather than 30 percent, so if that’s your audience, it would benefit you to advertise on this site," she explained. "The trio was awarded $500 in cash and $1,000 in legal fees to launch the site, which they plan to do this summer

Wide Range of Students Become Entrepreneurs

Raman Chadha, executive director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, noted that this year’s Launch DePaul finals attracted students from the widest range of academic programs at DePaul. "It demonstrates that entrepreneurship has expanded beyond the business school and is inspiring students from all disciplines and all areas of career interest," he said. "While not all students are studying entrepreneurship, they are practicing entrepreneurship."

To encourage this trend, the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center has been reaching out to students at all nine of DePaul’s colleges and schools to raise awareness of its Blueprint Program, which mentors students through the process of successfully launching and growing entrepreneurial businesses, non-profits and social ventures. About 130 students from across the university participated in the program this academic year, including many of the contestants in the Launch DePaul competition.