UMKC grad students create 'Snap Bandage' dispenser

As part of a team of seven University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate students, Jennifer Rice spent a lot of late nights helping launch a business venture called “Snap Bandage.” Their patented product is a high-volume strip bandage dispenser that they hope to offer in hospitals and physicians’ offices.

“The goal is to minimize labor and cost attributed to opening bandages and also to maintain or increase sterility of bandages,” Rice said.

The students’ business got a big boost April 30. Snap Bandage was one of five businesses announced as a winner in the 2010 Regnier Family Foundations Venture Creation Challenge.

The challenge is offered to students as a way to encourage venture creation through a forum in which students from all disciplines on campus can present new venture concepts to local investors, entrepreneurs and venture professionals.

On April 23, students presented their work in competition at the Kauffman Foundation, 4801 Rockhill Road.

The five winning teams received a Launch Package valued at $15,000 that includes cash and in-kind services to help them start or continue their venture through the Student Ventures Program.

For a semester, students created a business plan that supports the commercialization of a high-growth-potential technology or a personal venture.

“To win was exciting,” Rice said.

“It felt like all of our hard work really paid off.”

The team got the idea to create a business around Snap Bandage after they heard of an idea for a product through a friend.

The friend had developed a product prototype after hearing his mom, a nurse, talk about how frustrated she was opening so many bandages.

“He came up with the idea for a high-volume bandage dispenser where you don’t have to deal with that. You just push and go,” Rice said.

“…We thought it was a feasible product that would do a lot of good.”

Now, the team will try to mass-manufacture and sell the product.

“We haven’t had our first sale yet, but we’re looking forward to that,” Rice said.

“I have a lot of friends who are nurses and they have been super excited about a product like this that will save time.”

Derek Hoy, a Bloch Master of Business Administration student, said he hopes the product he created as part of his Venture Creation Challenge will be on the market by tailgating season.

Hoy created a “Shoot-A-Brew” cooler. The cooler allows a person to sit back in a lawn chair, and by using a remote control, have the cooler toss a beverage from 10 feet away.

Hoy said he originally came up with the idea about 10 years ago.

“It was just a bunch of guys sitting in a college house dreaming up crazy things to do,” he said.

He joined the creation challenge as a solo competitor because he said it gave him more opportunities for feedback on his business.

About a week before the competition, Hoy got the product patented. Now he said he feels like he has a lot of support to move forward.

“It’s huge,” Hoy said.

“It’s really opened the door to see that, ‘OK, this is pretty realistic now.’”

Winning teams were selected by a group of judges including Tom Bloch, co-founder, University Academy; David Brain, CEO, Entertainment Properties Trust; Joe Freeman, COO, Pioneer Services;

Pat Macdonald, Port Authority/Ameristar-Isle of Capri Economic Advancement Fund; Stephen Meade, entrepreneur, Big Bamboo; Joe Roetheli, CEO, Lil’ Red Foundation;

Judy Roetheli, president, Lil’ Red Foundation; and Brooks Sherman, executive vice president and CFO, Inergy.

Bloch said he was “enormously inspired” by the students’ ideas, plans and business knowledge.

“Each of the teams demonstrated an incredibly broad depth of technical skills and leadership in the creation of their ventures,” Bloch said.

“Being a judge reaffirmed my confidence in the tremendous value of entrepreneurship and innovation education. Considering the risks involved in starting a new business, my message to any budding entrepreneur is that the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the UMKC Bloch School is the place to be.”

The other winning teams were:

Fitness Tracker – A group of five Bloch School Executive MBA students created a product which automatically tracks, monitors and measures a person’s exercise routine and helps them achieve better results.

MySimpleSecurity.com – A group of five Bloch School Executive MBA students created a suite of state-of-the-art security products that use the power of integration to protect one’s identity.

TranformaLEDs Technologies – A group of six graduate students in Business and Law and one undergraduate student in Computing and Engineering created a business that seeks to revolutionize the LED market by introducing a “true green” technology.

Through research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the technology brings a brighter, more efficient, cheaper LED to the industry.

This year, more than 70 investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders from the Kansas City area volunteered and viewed more than 40 UMKC student business venture creations and helped select the eight finalist presentation teams.

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