Club members win GWU business plan competition

Two National Press Club members, Anthony Shop and Thomas Sanchez, co-owners of the
digital strategy firm Social Driver, took home first place and $25,000 in seed funding from the prestigious George Washington University Business Plan Competition (www.gwbizplan.com).

The two Kansas City natives, along with their teammates Danny Zaslavsky and Dave Raffel who still reside there, developed a software application that helps auto dealers enhance the customer experience and accelerate the car-buying process.

The Business Plan Competition is a real-life “Shark Tank.” The team survived three rounds of competition over a two-month period and was selected from an original pool of 112 entries -- a record number of applicants.

During the final round, each team presented creative and innovate business plans to a distinguished panel of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders in a real-world
presentation format modeled after venture capital presentations.

“The judges were very impressed with several aspects of the Lead Driver presentation. It’s a product that’s up and running today in multiple car dealerships so they had a head start from other teams, and [the judges] also liked the fact it was a multi-disciplined team. That kind of team balance makes a big difference when you’re starting
a business,” said John Rollins, an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at George Washington.