The Fall 2009 new venture seed grant winners have been announced. These students have gone through an application process and presented their plans to the Entrepreneurship Advisory Council in order to receive grants to go towards their new ventures. Business plans could be in a variety of different industries and selections were made based on the quality of information students provided in their new venture proposals. Five student ventures were awarded seed money.

WakeCakes: WakeCakes is a new venture presented by juniors Christopher Class, Stacy Graf and Matthew Kaden and sophomore David Motto. WakeCakes plans to offer parents a way to let their children know they are thinking of them by sending students personalized cakes.  The founders of WakeCakes plan to market the venture, take orders, have cakes made by an outside supplier and then deliver the cakes to the designated students.  Graf commented that the group looks forward to “the independence and freedom of making all the important decisions” that will come with their business, and said that, “in the future they hope to expand to cookie cakes, care packages and more.”

Government Initiatives Project: Three seniors, Dhruva Rajendra, Benjamin Lynch and Zahir Rahman, are starting a Government Initiative Project that will encourage members of the Winston-Salem community to take full advantage of the government’s recent stimulus package and other legislations. They plan on creating a website and a monthly newsletter that will both be full of information on how local small businesses and non-profits can make the most of government initiatives.  According to Rajendra, They also plan on, “funding a policy forum on campus that will allow our clients unabated access to their representatives. Our venture would like to be developed nationally into a student organization that provides government relations consulting everywhere. Our venture can grow quickly as long as people are made aware of our service.  We have added three new clients this week alone!”

Wear to Win LLC: Wear to Win LLC is a web-based company co-founded in 2007 by Senior Laura Ormson and her mother. The venture sells fashionable, flattering golf clothing with a youthful flair to female golfers. The company website offers golfing tips, advice and motivational stories in addition to its clothing selections. After marketing her line at tournaments and extensively researching her business plan, Laura Ormson launched www.weartowin.com this past June. She plans to keep expanding her corporation with the new venture seed grant money.

Bubbles: Three freshmen, James Rex, James McCabe and Marco Banfi, have come up with a new method of discussion for viewing movie trailers online. Rather than have users wait until the end of a trailer to comment on a video, Bubbles allows users to submit comments that, once approved, will pop up in the outer region of the trailer’s screen without interrupting the viewing process. Rex explained, “Our inspiration came from seeing a universal service that we could provide to both the producer and the consumer. We see lots of potential for growth and profit. We are excited to find investors and are also currently looking for students to contract as designers."

The Demon Voice: Two freshmen, Matt Johnson and Matt Stanley plan on starting a new publication at Wake Forest University. Their publication, entitled The Demon Voice, will provide an attention-grabbing, thought-provoking, creative, and trustworthy news source to the Wake Forest community. After start up costs the print publication will be a self-sustaining venture carried by ads. They also hope to eventually move into an online publication. Johnson noted, “Every University deserves to have a diversity of publications on campus. The Demon Voice would fill the void that currently exists at Wake Forest. All over campus there are students and faculty who have unique stories and perspectives that are waiting to be told.”