Jeff Mullins is a man with a mission. He says he was a patent attorney for seven years to get to know how that works. Then he went back to school, the MBA program at Carnegie-Mellon, to focus on entrepreneurship. He’s now got the hottest startup I’ve seen in a while, Dynamics, the winner of the big prize at the Rice University Business Plan Contest.

And the big prize is pretty big. It’s hard to piece apart the package between cash and cash equivalents. There’s $20,000 in cash, $80,000 in free services, a $100,000 investment from Opportunity Houston (which is contingent on moving to Houston), and, certainly the real value jackpot, a $125,000 investment from the famed Goose Society of Texas. 

The GOOSE group — it stands for Grand Order of Successful Entrepreneurs — was formed by Rod Canion, Bob Brockman and four other very well known Texas entrepreneurship giants a few years ago, mainly to invest in the Rice contest winner. It now includes eight members. And past winners have ended up with more than just the investment money promised — mentorship, good advice, and deeper pockets. They’ve supported past winners with a lot more than just the initial amount...