Business Plan Competitions

Media has been obsessed with the ongoing saga and competition between the electric car start-ups such as Tesla and Fisker Automotive. There's many others, too. For instance, VentureBeat has chronicled 30 different electric car companies.

The automotive industry is shambles and are start-ups beginning to take over.

Yes, these companies are impressive. But, what do you get when you take it to an even higher level? Can a car be crowdsourced?

So far, the answer is yes. And we've already explained how Local Motors plans to crowdsource the design of a car. But, have they been able to make their mark?

The start-up that originally stemmed from a Harvard Business School competition is already on to the next phase by using competitions to crowdsource engineering. But first, lets take a look at what they've been able to produce using the crowdsourced approach. Below are some of the designs for the final product.  And then we'll take a look at the next stage.Continue Reading...

Some of the best ideas come from the crowd. Businesses are starting to recognize this trend and launching competitions to crowdsource new products with intent to actually produce the most popular submitted ideas.

Yahoo is now trying this approach to develop new green products. Their competition "Make It Green" is currently running with a couple of days left to submit new ideas. If yours is selected, you could see it on store shelves and share a slice of the profits.     Continue Reading...

PBS broadcast the latest edition of FRONTLINE/World tonight and one feature was right up College Mogul's alley.

In "Egypt: Middle East, Inc.," you'll see how Soraya Salti, is turning on Egypt's youth to entrepreneurship.

“Either these youth become a burden on our economies or they become an engine of growth and prosperity,” says Salti.

"We want to instill in them the entrepreneurial spirit and the entrepreneurial skill-set so that they can create their employment opportunity. We want to create excitement. And what's the best thing to do, more than create a competition for entrepreneurs?”

Watch the full 20-minute video on the FRONTLINE/World Web site.

Some things just work well together. Picture a burger with a side of fries or Adobe and Macromedia. Now, how about T-shirts and tattoos?

In the summer of 2007, soon after graduating from Boston University with a degree in film production, Jeremy Parker joined forces with his cousin Ben Parker -- at the time, a junior at the University of Maryland -- to the start a business. That business: a high-end tattoo-influenced T-shirt company called Tees and Tats.

In April, Tees and Tats was a finalist in the University of Maryland’s fourth annual business competition, the "Cupid's Cup."

With an eight-person staff, overseas manufacturing and growing retail network, Tees and Tats is on the move.

Meet Parker:Continue Reading...

Today's energy problems can't be tackled with technology alone. The energy crisis requires collaboration that fuses multiple disciplines that form solutions that fit economically, socially, and technologically within today's environment and restraints.

Entrepreneurs cannot go this alone either, they need to work with engineers, legal counsel, government agencies, social scientists, researchers, and others to make sure all pieces fit to ensure the adoption of clean technologies.

The MIT Clean Energy Prize is a step in the right direction, aimed at pulling all those resources together to catalyze clean energy entrepreneurship in a conducive environment. The competition combines academia, government, and industry to bring perspective and strategy from all angles.

Amongst the many industry sponsors, MIT teamed up with NSTAR and the United States Department of Energy to award $500,000 worth of prizes to turbocharge clean tech start-ups. These new companies not only have to be logically innovative, but need to be economically viable and utilize technology that can produce leverage in reducing today's energy dependence.

Continue Reading...

While Tony Brown initially set out to aid the failing journalism industry with his NearBuy iPhone application for classified ads, his product may have a greater impact on the failing real estate market.

Last week, a panel of industry experts selected him and teammates Zenhua Ma, Dan Wang and Peng Zhuang as winners of the Reynolds Journalism Institute Student iPhone Competition hosted by the University of Missouri. The team created an application that syncs real estate classifieds pulled from Google Base and Craigslist to a Google Map based on the iPhone user’s location. The application also allows users to post pictures of the surrounding neighborhood via Flickr and even communicate with the Twitter community for reviews of the property itself.

Outfitted by the school with $3,000 and new iPhones with AT&T service contracts, the team competed against three other teams for eight months to create the most innovative, media-oriented application. “I can’t say that I’m an expert in anything related to real estate," Tony acknowledges, but believes his efforts to modernize the traditional classified ad may help save the tanking industry. Continue Reading...

Not many college-based business plan competitions can claim they've given birth to over 120 companies that have cummulatively attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, have had market caps in the billions, have been acquired by such leading companies as Cisco, MTV, and 3M or have gone public on their own like Akamai, net.Genesis, and C-Bridge Internet Solutions.

Although the finalists at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition all come from different competition "tracks,” they share one common theme: logical innovation.

The business ideas that are cultivated at MIT are drastically different from the types of "Web 2.0" start-ups you'll read about on most blogs. The types of concepts that are brainstormed, studied, researched, prototyped, developed, and launched through MIT’s annual business plan competition tackle real-world problems with incremental technological innovation that provide solutions, such as preventing blindness and capturing energy from shocks in automobiles.

I like to describe these solutions as "logically innovative" because they mix current technologies with ideas that are feasible and don't require the adoption of too many technologies or too far advanced technologies. In other words, they're inventions that leverage existing technologies to provide a magnitude of value greater than what currently exists without over reaching their bounds.

A large part of this equation is studying and tackling one very specific problem.

Competition winners are chosen based on the feasibility of the new solutions, size of the market opportunity, value proposition, and whether or not people are actually willing to pay for their products.

This year’s top concept is rather simple.Continue Reading...

Business plan competitions are quickly becoming marquee events at universities as they help discover, fund and bring compelling technologies to market. UC Berkeley's 11th annual competition at the Haas School of Business has helped launch companies who've raised a cumulative $165 million in venture capital. While many have been acquired for several million, some have much larger exits, such as Timber Technologies that sold for $138 million to Tokyo Electron Limited. They placed second in 1999. Here's a look a look at the the top three companies that placed this year.

AutoTB, the winner of this year's Berkeley Business Plan Competition, aims to tackle an epidemic that affects one third of the world's population infected with tuberculosis. The start-up that originated from Cambridge University in England won an additional $25,000 for their device that is designed to improve diagnostics by automating sputum microscopy. The goal is to decrease analysis time, increase sensitivity and reduce human error present in current procedures. Not only is it a worthy cause, but they have the potential to capture a significant portion of the $1 billion dollar market for tuberculosis diagnosis.

Business plan competitions like the one at Berkeley not only attract some of today's top MBA and PhD students, but also draw venture capitalists from highly esteemed firms, such as O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and BlueRun Ventures that served as the competition's final round judges. This year, the competition attracted 100 executive summary applications and 40 venture capitalists who donated their time to judge the event.

Prize money totaled $45,000 and uncovered two other healthcare start-ups.

Novophage took second place for their "advanced biological solution to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in a clinical setting." When used in conjunction with antibiotic therapy, the Boston-area MBA students' solution was able to increase the survival rate of mice with septic infection from 20-80%. They're calling their solution the "next generation of antimicrobials."

The Berkeley Business Plan Competition isn't Novaphage's first contest. The MIT, Harvard and Boston University-born company recently placed second at the University of Nebraska's business plan competition (March 29, 2009), were among three finalists at Boston University's competition (April 7, 2009) and grabbed first place at the University of South Florida International Business Plan Competition (March 5, 2009) and the top prize at the 26th annual Global Moot Corp Competition at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin (May 9, 2009).

The Moot Corp Competition prides itself as the largest and oldest new venture competition in the world and is often referred to as the "Super Bowl of world business plan competitions." Novophage's prize at Moot Corp totaled $135,000 including $25,000 cash and an Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package worth $25,000.

While AutoTB is tackling tuberculosis and Novaphage fights infections, Berkley-based Integrated Diagnostics is taking on another global epidemic, HIV, which 33 million people lived with in 2007.

Integrated Diagnostics took third place for $5,000 at Berkeley with an additional $5,000 for the People's Choice Award for "developing a novel, easy-to-use, patent-pending, point-of-care device for early stage, accurate HIV detection." Like AutoTB and Novaphage, they aim to increase accuracy, while decreasing the cost of expensive laboratory costs.

Ready to compete?

For good advice on writing an effective business plan, Sequoia Capital has a business plan outline that addresses key points you want to consider.

Related links:

• Berkeley Business Plan Competition
• AutoTB
• Novophage
• Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package

This past weekend Novophage took first place and bagged $135,000 at the University of Texas at Austin's annual Moot Corp Competition. The prize money breaks out like this:

1. $25,000 in cash;
2. the Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package worth $25,000, featuring a one-year membership, which includes strategic business consulting services and mentoring from a team of industry experts, office space, and access to discounted legal, accounting and businesses services from top-tier providers;
3. consulting with the UT's McCombs School of Business entrepreneurship faculty worth $25,000;
4. a full page ad in Inc. magazine worth $60,000.

Novophage has developed patent-pending bacteriophages (viruses that infect and destroy bacteria) that will increase the efficacy of antibiotic treatment and extend the lifetime of antibiotics. The phages attack bacteria, significantly delaying the onset of antibiotic resistance. The phages are designed to complement existing antibiotic treatment of infections.

According to the company, they have observed 30,000-time increases in bactericide (the killing of bacteria) of antibiotics, when combined with Novophage-engineered phages against various types of bacteria, which are obstacles in antibiotic treatment. The company also boasts an increase in the survival rate of E. coli-infected mice from 20% to 80%, when phages are used in conjunction with traditional antibiotic therapy.

Novophage is comprised of a stellar team of PhD, MD and MBA candidates at top universities in the Boston area, including MIT, Harvard and Boston University.

Related links:

• Novophage
• Moot Corp Competition

If you're in Canada and have a startup that hasn't received any significant amount of funding, then you should check out the New Ventures BC Competition. The competition has been running since 2003 and includes $300,000 worth of prizes. Below is some info if you're interested. I found the opportunity on StartupNorth.

Like most competitions, they'll be opportunities to meet mentors, attend seminars, pitch to venture capitalists, and network with legal, marketing, and business professionals. There will also be plenty of opportunities to refine your business plan to increase your chances for additional rounds of financing.

There are four rounds of "increasing complexity and commitment" and sounds like a serious competition with a $100 entrance fee. Here is some more information:

Competition Deadline: April 20th

The new 2009 prize structure includes:

$120,000 British Columbia Innovation Council First-prize package
$63,000 British Columbia Innovation Council Second-prize package
$37,000 British Columbia Innovation Council Third-prize package
BC Hydro Sustainability $40,000 prize
BC Bioenergy Network $20,000 prize
British Columbia Innovation Council Economic Impact $20,000 prize

For details and to register for the competition, visit http://www.newventuresbc.com or call 604-725-5740.

For other sources of funding, check out our Directory of Incubators & Seed Funding Venture Programs.