For the eighth year, the Broad College of Business presented the Broad Business Model Competition, showcasing students’ innovations with up to $50,000 in scholarship winnings available.

The event serves as a launching point for student ventures at Michigan State University. There are three phases of the competition, in which teams provide basic information about their ventures, create extensive business plans, and (for the finalists) present their ideas in a trade show at the MSU Union Ballroom.

Winners of the Broad Business Model Competition:

1st place, LineLeap: a fast-paced option for skipping lines at popular bars and nightclubs at popular venues in cities and college campuses. Founders: Chase Garland (BA Marketing ’21), with University of Wisconsin and University of Michigan student partners Max Schauff, Patrick Skelly, and Nick Becker.

Garland speaks about the winning team’s next steps, noting, “LineLeap has grown rapidly in its first year. We have signed 25 venues in 12 different cities. Our plans moving forward are to develop new software to match the expansion of our reach in this market. We are also working on closing sales talks with business owners that will triple our number of venues by the end of the summer. Winning the Business Model Competition has certainly been a help to us, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

2nd place, Smart Staffing: Offering an easy-to-use tool that allows adults in home health care agencies to automate the process of assigning and scheduling caregivers with elderly clients. This app reduces the amount of overhead needed in an office by 25 to 50 percent while maximizing revenue.

3rd place, People’s Choice Award, Raw + Rooted: The all-natural gourmet snack bite company offers three different gluten-free and dairy-free bites to satisfy any craving. These wholesome snacks are made with 100-percent compostable packaging, making the world a healthier place, one bite at a time.

4th place, Lingco: This adaptive language-learning platform for schools creates an individualized learning path to guide students through the curriculum set by the instructor. Lingco provides instructors with detailed notes on students’ progress and identifies areas of weakness.

5th place: TrackOR: The app uses Natural Language Processing to keep track of all surgical instruments as they are called for by the surgeon so that no instrument goes forgotten.

People’s Choice Award, Rentfolio: This crowd-investing real estate company focuses on pooling investors who want to invest in a percentage of a property and receive that percentage of the rental income each month, without the hassle of managing the property themselves or personally hiring a management company.

Photos from the event can be found on our Flickr channel.