James Baird III ’06, Diego Sanchez ’06, Wayne Thorsen ’06 and Eric Zavesky reached the semifinals of Fortune Small Business magazine’s annual business plan contest.
38 teams from top American business schools — including students from NYU Stern, Wharton and the University of Chicago — competed in the annual event. The public can read about the 12 semifinalists online and vote for the winner. The Columbia team’s start-up, ExpertBee, is a Web site that lets visitors post questions and choose from a list of experts. Customers name the maximum price they would pay for an answer and experts submit bids for how much they would charge. In April, the School selected ExpertBee along with four other student-led start-ups to receive support from the Lang Fund. The site has received 700 questions since it launched in February.
Judges will evaluate the strength of the management teams and the viability of each business plan. The winner will be announced in the November issue of the magazine.
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