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Vitamin-enriched water may soon become a household item for expectant mothers, thanks to a business plan written up by a team of Carroll School of Management MBA students whose insight, analysis, and strategic recommendations were enough to wow judges at the Carroll School’s annual business plan competition — and may help send the product to market as early as next year.
The competition, held last Friday in Fulton Hall, capped a semester-long effort by 18 MBA teams who either worked on business plans for ideas they thought of themselves, or created business plans based on ideas hatched by other entrepreneurs. The winning team, #BirdsandtheMBeeAs, based their plan on an idea submitted by two women from Brooklyn for a product called Bump Water, a supplemental water women of child-bearing age can drink for necessary nutrients instead of taking pills.
“Most women now need to take a supplement for folic acid and some of the other vitamins,” says team member Mary Lentowski. “The water really allows them to do this in a way that helps settle their stomach, get the hydration they need, and be compliant with their doctor’s regimen. So we think that Bump Water really fills a niche for that.”
Adds Brendan Syron, “Because it’s a supplement, we’re not going to need FDA approval. So we’re going to be able to hit the market just like any other products that you’d find in GNC or any of these supplemental vitamin pills.”
Entrepreneurs such as the creators of Bump Water license the students to write the business plans free of charge, although they maintain all intellectual property rights. In recent years, 60-70 percent of work done by Boston College MBA students has been adopted by entrepreneurs who end up taking their concepts to market.
“Our MBA students did a wonderful job all semester,” says Adjunct Lecturer Greg Stoller, director of the MBA business planning course. “They really took this from start to finish and they deserve a lot of credit for a job well done.“