Think 'American Idol' but at Stanford's business school

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- They don't usually teach this in business school: When it comes to launching companies, style can matter as much as substance.

The budding capitalists at Stanford University on Friday held Entrepreneur Idol, a take-off on the Fox TV show "American Idol."

Instead of singing tunes by Bon Jovi, 48 students had one minute apiece to pitch their best business ideas. The winner would land $2,000 in seed money and connections to a top-level venture firm -- but first had to win over the panel of four venture capitalists and one technology blogger.

Stanford has long fed Silicon Valley's start-up factory, with students going on to create such notable firms as Google Inc. Charles River Ventures, a company with offices in Waltham and Menlo Park, Calif., sponsored the event to embed its name in the brains of the future titans of business.

But the company also wanted to go beyond the traditional business school education -- preparation, financial analysis, market research -- and teach the students something about selling business concepts in the real world.

The students came in to the event at the Stanford Business School, one at a time -- some in sandals and shorts, others in khakis and business suits.

Linus Liang, 25, a first-year graduate student in computer science, held up a diapered baby doll. "What if I could tell you how you can save 4 million babies a year?" he asked. His idea: Create a low-cost incubator that could help infants in developing countries.

Aman Naimat, 23, a computer science graduate student, pitched a consumer site. He came back later to pitch a video piracy idea. "I have no business model," he said. "I just came up with this idea yesterday."

Scores were tallied. The five finalists pitched again. And as with American Idol, the viewers decided. The crowd of rejected Idol contestants and student spectators clapped and cheered the loudest for Liang, who took home the $2,000 prize. He just smiled to the audience, then scurried to the judges for more advice.