The next Incline millionaires?

What did it take for Richard Donnelly of Kings Beach and Michael Chestone of Incline Village to take home the top prize of $20,000 in the annual Governor's Cup competition?

"Taking a blow, dusting yourself off, and keeping on," says Chestone, a senior at Sierra Nevada College.

Out of the four teams originally entered from that school, only one, "Simply Sun," followed through to the finish, says Kamlesh T. Mehta, professor of International Business Management and chair of the Sierra Nevada College department of management.

The competition was designed to encourage students to develop an entrepreneurial bent. Participants must create business and marketing plans for actual products.

"It's been an ongoing process for a year and a half," says Mehta, whose role in the win was to assist the team with plan writing, review and when needed, criticism. "All components of the business plan must meet the needs of the investors, to make it real world."

Why did this team win?

"It was the uniqueness of the idea," says Mehta. "Simple but complex. Something innovative that no one thought of. They took two existing ideas: windows and the solar energy concept. But no one had put those two together. That's why this stands out as one of the more innovative ideas ever invented."

Chestone says the students began looking at solar power, then studied ways to improve its cost efficiency and aesthetic appeal.

Their answer is a system of windows that generates electricity and then routes that electricity into the rest of the building through the electrical system.

How did business majors create a complex technology?

"We lacked a background in science and physics, so we had a major learning curve to overcome," says Chestone. "We had to speak to scientists. We found them online. It definitely took some work,"

And then, he says, "The first ones turned out not to the right people."

Once they found the right scientist, they had to secure his help. Did that take salesmanship?

"Absolutely. It was a lot of dialogue," says Chestone. "But after he saw how much work we put into it, he was willing to meet us halfway."

Not that the students started with no specialized knowledge. Donnelly had a background in glass manipulation, having studied glass blowing in Italy.

The next step, says Chestone, is to continue with product development. He plans a year of live prototyping in the Southwestern states.

And the learning curve wasn't the only hurdle. It was a stretch for these students to muster the resources to even enter the competition. And cover the printing costs.

"It helps to have institutional support," says Mehta. "The students had to pay their own way. We were competing with UNR and UNLV, gigantic institutions."

Student government at Sierra Nevada College also came through with some funding for the project.

"It's such a small school, it's nice," says Chestone. "We're friends with people in student government."

And Mehta had volunteered his time to help them; it was not part of his overall responsibility at the college. Plus, he had to cover his own travel and hotel expenses to attend the final judging in Las Vegas. Each team's faculty advisor was required to attend, or the team would be disqualified.

However, the team was optimistic about shelling out the cash, because the original scorecard their project received in March had awarded them 99 points out of 100.

"So we knew we had a good shot at winning," says Mehta.

But now the money woes are over. The prize-winners are currently working with a number of investors they met along the way, and they are not seeking outside investment.

Industry research, based on regular non-residential glass sales, estimates the market potential for their product at $10 billion in the U.S. alone, and it could earn up to $200 million in the first nine years, says Mehta.

He adds, "You may be looking at the newest Incline millionaires."