University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate student John Lynn, shown Wednesday at the Rebels' football practice field, won the Governor's Cup business plan competition for his fantasy sports Web site, FantasyHigh.net. Photo by ISAAC BREKKEN/REVIEW-JOURNAL Theresa Hatch took second in the Governor's Cup graduate category and won $10,000 based on a plan for Berkeley Sourcing Group, a firm designed to help small companies outsource manufacturing. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

For John Lynn, a bright idea has paid off.

Lynn captured first place in the graduate category of the 2006 Governor's Cup Business Plan Competition, a statewide program that promotes entrepreneurship among university students.

For his efforts, Lynn walked away with $20,000 in seed money for FantasyHigh.net, a Web site that would help amateur sports teams raise funds via fans who pay to participate in contests predicting game scores and winners.

"I wanted to take the joy I have in fantasy sports and integrate that into fund raising," said Lynn, who's studying at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for a master's in information-systems management. His concept would allow groups of family and friends to compete for prizes, and would give fans access to online communities where coaches could post inside information about high school and college teams.

Lynn said 80 percent of fans' contest-entry fees would go to sports clubs.

Lynn hasn't earmarked the cash prize for a specific purpose, but he expects a clearer idea of how he'll invest his winnings after he meets with members of a local venture-capital fund in late May.

He's not the only Las Vegan contemplating how to invest award money from the Governor's Cup.

Two other UNLV teams were among the six statewide winners sharing $70,000 in prize money in the Governor's Cup, a program of the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology in Carson City.

Theresa Hatch placed second in the graduate category and won $10,000 based on a plan for Berkeley Sourcing Group, a firm designed to help small companies outsource manufacturing to China.

Janet Runge, the UNLV professor who advised Hatch during the Governor's Cup process, said Hatch's proposal fills a critical niche.

"We hear so much about outsourcing, but small businesses are in large part cut out of that loop," said Runge, interim director of UNLV's Center for Entrepreneurship. "They don't have the expertise and the knowledge, and they don't understand the mechanics of outsourcing. Here's a plan that focuses on opening up (outsourcing) opportunities for small businesses and inventors who don't have the same advantages as big companies. It allows them to capture their ideas in a way that's cost-effective."

A third UNLV student, David Kellen, snared $10,000 after placing second in the undergraduate division for a product called Safe Ride. Safe Ride would design and distribute seat belt-ignition interlocks that keep a car from starting unless its seat belt is fastened. The primary audience: parents with teens.

Kellen said he came up with his idea about a year ago, after he narrowly avoided an accident after leaving a gasoline station. He wasn't wearing his seat belt, and another driver almost blindsided his car.

"I was driving down the road, shaking a bit from that near-accident, and I thought about what would have prevented me from pulling out of the station without my seat belt on," Kellen said. "I decided the only thing that would have stopped me was if I had not been able to start the vehicle."

Runge, who also counseled Kellen during the ernor's Cup, said Safe Ride's product has a "built-in market."

"For less than the price of an iPod, parents can make sure their teens are a whole lot safer," she said. "(Safe Ride) has an emotional appeal that just can't miss."

The three other Governor's Cup winners came from Sierra Nevada College and the University of Nevada, Reno. Their ideas included insulated windows that generate solar electricity, a hydrogen-producing device and an Internet match-making site for businesses and economic-development authorities.

The 2006 Governor's Cup drew 38 entries statewide; contest judges came from entities including Zappos.com, Sierra Angels, Vegas Valley Angels, the Thomas & Mack Co. and Prestige Travel. In addition to the $70,000 allotted to the winners, a total of $30,000 went to finalists and faculty advisers.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and about 10 corporate sponsors financed the program.

Winners and finalists aren't the only participants who benefit from the contest, Runge said.

The Governor's Cup can help startup hopefuls refine their ideas and practice presenting their concepts to potential investors. It can also help them determine whether their proposal is worth pursuing.

"One of the best uses of a business plan is to understand that maybe this (idea) isn't the opportunity you thought it was," Runge said. "It's so much better to figure that out before you've invested a lot of time and money in something that isn't going to work. The business plan process is huge. It's not just about attracting investment or partners; it's about helping you understand where you really can go."

The three local winners are already going places with their business plans.

In addition to his cash prize, Lynn's first-place ranking earned him an invite to the Vegas Venture Forum in late April.

There, he met entrepreneurs, investors and attorneys who could help him develop FantasyHigh.net, which he said should be up and running for the fall high-school football season. He plans to hire an experienced executive to run the business while he finishes his degree. He also expects to add a couple of support staff members to handle customer service for the Web site's rollout.

Executives at Berkeley Sourcing Group are already working with potential clients to gather bids from Chinese manufacturers.

Berkeley's three executives -- Hatch is chief financial officer, Greg Fisher is president and Ashton Udall is an account executive -- have spent several weeks in China, developing manufacturing contacts and learning how to do business in the country.

They've also struck partnerships with Chinese suppliers. The prize money from the Governor's Cup will help finance treks to China and appearances at trade shows and venture-capital meetings.

"The important thing about doing business in China is knowing and learning the culture," said Hatch, who graduated Saturday from UNLV with a master's in business administration. "We're trying to further our understanding of the culture there."

Berkeley Sourcing Group will focus on clientele in the clean-energy and green-building arenas, Hatch said.

At Safe Ride, the principals have created a working prototype, though the mock-up is not in a marketable format, Kellen said.

Up next: Kellen and his management team, which includes his wife, Marysol, and his father, Tom, will evaluate how to make Safe Ride work with all makes and models of cars. Kellen, who just finished his finance degree at UNLV, expects to have a product on the market within a year; once Safe Ride is rolling off assembly lines, Kellen will hire employees. He plans to market Safe Ride through parent-teacher associations, insurance companies and print ads that would direct readers to a company Web site where they could place orders.

Students don't have to win the Governor's Cup to transform their plans into operating concerns. Several concepts that didn't place in the 2006 competition are either landing investors or up and running.

Vegas E-Wedding, an Internet service that provides personalized pages for couples who marry in chapels on and around the Strip, is meeting with potential clients.

Exotic Illusions will rent out replicas of high-end cars for a fraction of the cost of borrowing the real deal. The business has agreements with automakers and is just waiting on investors, Runge said.

And an art gallery in Scottsdale, Ariz., is already operating based on a proposal submitted to the Governor's Cup competition, she added.

"(The Governor's Cup) is just a fabulous opportunity because it allows students to take what they would really like to do and assess its reality, and to understand whether it's really possible," Runge said. "It also gives them an excuse for moving forward."

Runge, who oversees recruitment of Governor's Cup teams at UNLV, said she's already seeking entrants for the 2007 competition.

Runge said she doesn't want to merely boost participation numbers, though; she hopes to encourage students from outside the business school to join the contest. For example, senior engineering students who take a design class could learn from the business-plan process whether there's a market for their idea and how to sell their concept.

This year's winners agree that -- money aside -- the Governor's Cup is valuable for its participants.

"Most people who come up with a business idea don't really take the time to look at things like financials, cash flow, critical risks and how you'll market yourself," Hatch said. "A business plan forces you to at least look at those things. You might not come up with solutions to everything, but you can identify things that need to be addressed. And if you're competitive, doing a business plan for a contest will make you work even harder to do a good job, and you'll probably learn more."

For Lynn, entering the Governor's Cup has made his idea reality.

"If I had started (FantasyHigh.net) without the Governor's Cup, I wouldn't really have been able to call it a business. I would have called it a Web site that people visited," Lynn said. "Because of the Governor's Cup, I can now look at it as a properly funded business that has people working toward creating an actual company. And the connections I've made with judges and investors will last my whole career."