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Saito and Woodruff with a plaque and check
Robert Saito and Derek Woodruff

Herbavore, a customizable garden handtool business received first place honors at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE) 2017 Business Plan Competition at the Waiʻalae Country Club on May 3. Four teams competed for prize packages totaling more than $40,000 in cash and in-kind awards.

The UH Business Plan Competition is an intense, experiential program that provides mentorship, training and resources to UH students and faculty who seek to learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur and start a business venture. Through this competition, participants practice the art of testing the feasibility of a business idea, developing a business plan and pitching it to investors.

The results are:

First place—Prize package includes $10,000 cash and more than $12,500 value in legal and marketing services
Team: Herbavore
Herbavore is a company that designs and manufactures innovative, modular horticultural hand tools.
Team members: Robert Saito and Derek Woodruff

Second place—Prize package includes $5,000 cash and $8,000 value in legal and marketing services
Team: Radial3d
Radial3d is a virtual and augmented reality platform that facilitates shared viewing of medical images by clinicians and their patients within a “Mixed Reality” environment
Team members: McKay Davis, Scott Lozanoff, Jesse Thompson and Evan Young

Third place—Prize package includes $2,500 cash and $3,000 value in legal and marketing services
Team: Turnover BnB
Turnover BnB is a company that connects vacation rental hosts with cleaners to provide seamless and reliable turnover service.
Team members: Assaf Karmon and Timothy Roy

The competition was supported by title sponsor American Savings Bank. Other sponsors include Convergent Law Group, The Harold and Sandy Noborikawa Chair of Entrepreneurship, HiBEAM and Pineapple Tweed.

For more pictures from 2017 Business Plan Competition, see the Shidler College of Business flickr.

—By Dolly Omiya

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