MSU Billings holds a competition for young entrepreneurs

Billings, Montana – The 2023 Hive entrepreneur competition will be presented by Valley Credit Union and Montana State University Billings on April 12 at 10:30 a.m. in Petro Theatre on the university’s campus.

Young entrepreneurs should take advantage of this competition as a wonderful way to present their business concepts and possibly win financing to start their own companies. All high school students in the Billings region who are passionate about entrepreneurship and have original business ideas are welcome to enter the competition. Participants will present their business concepts to a panel of judges, who will assess them according to their originality, viability, and likelihood of success.

The event’s creator and senior vice president of business development at Valley Credit Union, Brandon Scala, collaborates with senior high school entrepreneurial classes from Senior High School, Skyview High School, West High School, and the Career Center to find participants. These classes have spent the semester learning about starting businesses, developing business plans, and selling products. Scala says he wants to help young people who are interested in starting their own businesses realize their ambitions of doing so because there are various paths to success. He continues by saying that everything he learned about business on the job, where he ultimately found great success, and that he now wants to use this competition to assist young folks in realizing their dreams.

The first-place winner will get $5,000 from Valley Credit Union to help with launch costs, and the second and third-place finishers will each receive $1,500 and $1,000 from the Northern Hotel. The People’s Choice Award winner, chosen by the crowd, will receive $500 from TEDxBillings. To improve their chances of starting a successful business, the first-place winner will receive mentoring from Rock 31 and the Billings Chamber of Commerce as well as advertising help from AD Creative.

The Billings Chamber of Commerce, Northern Hotel, AD Creative, Art House Billings, Billings Public Schools, Rock 31, Montana State University Billings, Canvas Creek Team Building, and TEDxBillings all contribute to making The Hive possible.