BYU Business Plan Competition

I spent the last 5 months launching a business with several classmates. Bazari is a mobile marketplace where people can buy and sell goods over even the most basic mobile phone. Through simple text messaging people can browse for products, purchase them and have them delivered. Our business is targeting developing countries such as the Philippines and India. We originally came up with the idea for the idea pitch competition, an early BPC (the Marriott School annual Business Plan Competition) event. We placed third in that competition and won some cash to help us further build out the idea. We spent countless hours strategizing and discussing how best to launch the business. We had the opportunity to meet with many industry professionals and pitch our business to many investors.

We applied aspects of just about every class that we had taken in the MBA program as we wrote the business plan and worked to build out the product and sign up partners/customers. Being students, we were able to gain access to many industry professionals and gain valuable insights that would have otherwise been difficult to obtain. We found great mentors and learned some extremely valuable lessons as we made significant mistakes early on.

Participating in the BPC and launching a new business requires significant sacrifice of time (something that is already extremely scarce in the MBA program). This semester alone, I have had to miss a lot of classes to participate in these events and even to travel to India for nine days to setup partnerships with several large organizations. Most of my professors have been supportive of missing class for this purpose although my grades may suffer for it. My older brother taught me an important lesson as an undergraduate student in regards to missing class and sacrificing grades for valuable learning experiences. He told me to not let school get in the way of my education. This same principle applies to participating in the BPC. Although it is important to learn the materials in class and work hard, it is even more important to find opportunities to truly apply those classroom lessons to real world situations.

~David Bishop, MBA Class of 2010