Sweet Heart Wins First Place

PROVO, Utah – Feb 16, 2017 – Sweet Heart, a wearable baby monitor for pregnant women, won first place and the hearts of the audience as crowd favorite at the Business Model Competition sponsored by the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Eric Andrew Stopper, CEO of Sweet Heart, took home $5,000 to his wife, Kamali’i, and their four-month-old son Grayson. Stopper created the product after analyzing the pain points his wife had during pregnancy. He and his wife woke up more than five times every night to count her baby’s kicks after a recommendation by their doctor to prevent medical conditions such as intrahepatic cholestasis. Stopper’s fetal activity monitor is comfortable to wear at night and can count the baby’s position, kicks, and heartrate.

The BMC is an annual competition where young entrepreneurs present their ideas to several judges. Judges evaluate teams based on principles such as cost structure, customer feedback, market channels, and key partners.

“I was excited to see how far along the products are this year as far as going from idea to an actual proven product,” Brown says. “And to see the number of technologies being used was very significant. It’s fun to see more patentable technologies being used compared to years in the past.”

Five companies presented at the competition and took home a share of the $20,000 offered in prize money. Following Sweet Heart in second place with a $4,500 prize was ScanFacter, a technology that uploads résumés and LinkedIn profiles digitally for recruiters to use at career fairs. In third, Okular, a marketing technology created using data from security cameras, was awarded $3,500.

“I wish we had this technology when my wife was pregnant,” Stopper says. “But the whole experience has humbled us greatly and the founders of the Rollins Center are great mentors to me.”

“When you have an idea, the Rollins Center assists in proving it and helping you know whether it could be a profitable business one day,” says Brooke Reynolds, an MBA student from Sacramento, California, who took fourth place.  

The BMC is the second leg of the Rollins Center’s Miller Competition series. The third and final stage is the New Venture Challenge on March 31 when $130,000 will be awarded to student entrepreneurs.  

For more information about the BMC and Miller Competition Series, visit millernvc.com/bmc.  

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems and public management. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,300 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.