A graduate student at the Naveen Jindal School of Management looks forward to a promising future in entrepreneurship, having recently won three competitions — and taking home $35,000 in cash and prizes in the process.

Mercedes Johnson, BA’19, a student in the Professional MBA Evening Cohort program whose concentration is in innovation and entrepreneurship, recently took one of two prizes in the UTDesign competition, won a Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholar Award and was runner-up in the student track of the Big Idea Competition, UT Dallas’ signature startup competition.

While applying for the MBA program, she learned about the innovation and entrepreneurship programs that UT Dallas had to offer. That opened her eyes to a whole new world.

From the first semester, she was “all-in,” as she put it. She enrolled in the CometX Accelerator program offered by UT Dallas’ Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“Marketing was one thing that I realized I don’t know how to do,” she said. “And that’s the most important part of entrepreneurship. You can have an amazing idea, but if you don’t know how to sell it or market it, it doesn’t matter.

Her solution? Add an MS in Marketing to her already heavy MBA student workload, along with her full-time job at Capital One

When Johnson started the CometX program, she was under the impression that she would be provided with an idea for a startup business and that she would practice how to build it out.

“But that’s not what happened,” she said. “I got there and they’re like, ‘what’s your idea?’ I was like, ‘Oh, no! Give me a week.’”

Over the next few days, she brainstormed business ideas. She thought of doing something related to the necessities of life — food, clothing and shelter. She ruled out real estate and clothing design, leaving food. Her ideas ranged from a vegan restaurant chain to a ghost-kitchen app

“The idea was that you could get food from different ghost kitchens,” she said. “Then I realized, ‘Oh, wait — COVID-19. That’s a problem; it’s not going to work. I thought, “OK, what’s cleaner? What’s mobile and is going to meet standards?”

Then an idea hit her: food trucks. She started doing research about the problems food-truck businesses face and then cold called food-truck owners in the area.

I told them, ‘Hey, I’m a student, I just want to know about your business. Can you tell me more?’” she said.

She learned that making connections was difficult for many of the food-truck owners during a pandemic. Restaurants were struggling, too. Delivery apps were filling a void but the food truck industry did not have one.

“I was like, ‘OK,” she said. “I’m a designer. I can do some sort of technical solution. Let me find a way to solve their problems and be able to leverage my skill set. That’s how I came up with Food Magnet.”

She enrolled in an Innovation and Entrepreneurship class (ENTP 6370) taught by Jackie Kimzey, an associate professor of practice in the Organizations, Strategy and International Management academic area. In that class, she learned of the crossover between user experience, design and entrepreneurship.

“In starting a business, like in the design process, we begin by interviewing, figuring out what the problem is,” she said. “It’s the same workstream; it’s just called a different thing.”

Next, Johnson applied for the Big Idea Competition. While going through that process, Dresden Goldberg, director of programs and operations at the institute, told her about the UTDesign competition. The primary requirement was that she bring a technical solution to a problem, which Johnson was certain she had with Food Magnet

Goldberg nominated Johnson for the Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholars Awards. She applied for it and won its $15,000 Mitchell Family Foundation Award. She won a UTDesign award presented at the Big Idea Competition worth $15,000 of coding services for two semesters and $5,000 cash for business expenses.

The coding services for Food Magnet will be performed by UTDesign, the senior capstone experience for computer science majors — much like UTDsolv, the senior capstone experience for Jindal School undergraduates.

Johnson plans to use her winnings to hire a CTO for Food Magnet, complete the app development and launch a pilot program this summer. With what’s left, she plans to do a marketing campaign. She said she would like to be a “serialpreneur” and start her own production company. For now, balancing academics and entrepreneurship are top on her mind. She said learning accounting and finance is not her cup of tea — but is necessary for building a business.

Goldberg said it has been a pleasure to mentor Johnson ever since she joined CometX at the onset of her entrepreneurial experience at UT Dallas.

“Over the last year, I have seen her grow tremendously as a startup founder, a leader and a student,” Goldberg said. “I am so excited to see what’s next for Mercedes; she will go far in her career no matter what path she decides to follow.”