Marquee Event for the Academic Year
The initial deadline for the Gillespie Business Plan requires you to enter with the simple online application form. Give us all the details you have. Tell the judges if you know how you will make money, how you will produce, why your customers will love your product.
Once all the entries are submitted, we will invite all participants to a series of workshops and a venture launch weekend event, so that they have an opportunity to develop their idea and presentation. Everyone who enters has the opportunity to pitch.
Entry into the Gillespie is also the gateway for the W. Thomas Colbert-Community Bank Innovation Award, a $5000 prize awarded to the outstanding Gillespie team driven by innovation in a product, process or service through the application or development of a technological change, as well as the Lynn and Ron Samuels Student Entrepreneur Award, also a $5000 prize awarded to a student entrepreneur team who exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit through a venture driven by innovation in a product, process or service.
The judging panel for the annual Gillespie Business Plan Competition will determine the winner.
Past Gillespie Winners
- 2020 DaisNotes – Nicholas Neilson-Slabach & Kyle Herbert
- 2019 Move Fitness – Jake Harrison & Tyler Moore
- 2018 ShortWork – Will Tribble & Sam Harres
- 2017 Collegiate Tutoring – Lee Ingram
- 2016 Curtsy – Sara Kiparizoska & William Ault
- 2015 Nippy Pumps — Tameka Wilson
- 2014 Cotton’s Café Dog Treat Bakery — Janet McCarty
- 2013 Isabel Thomas Designs — Taylor Isabel Thomas
- 2012 Utah Raptor Games — Ryan Rigney
- 2011 EOS — Ryan Andrews
- 2010 HRinnovations.com — Jack Smothers
- 2009 Fantastic Flatware — Jennifer Harjes
- 2008 AussieDealz.com — Joshua Stelzer
- 2007 Middle Tennessee Times — Parul Bajaj, Mary Grace Bratschi, Erin Dickey, Anjali Pahwa, Karah Shelly
- 2006 SoberCycles — Brent McHenry, Ashley Sullivan, Monica Evans, Courtney Gregory
- 2005 CTS Consulting — David Shields & Virginia Turnage
The endowment for the competition was provided in honor of Edwin C. Gillespie in 2006, a 1943 business administration graduate. His widow, Jean Gillespie, and brother, Joe Gillespie, a 1950 liberal arts graduate, helped establish the endowment to assist students in promoting concepts in entrepreneurship.
