Competitions

For those of you in the New York City area, here is an event that you want to make:

What:

The Pace Pitch Contest is being presented in association with the Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship and the MIT Enterprise Forum of New York City. It is based on the elevator pitch concept, popular in the venture capital community.

The pitch is an extremely concise presentation of an entrepreneur's idea, business model, marketing strategy, competitive analysis, and financial plan, which is delivered to potential investors. The premise is that it could be made in a few minutes, should the entrepreneur spot a potential investor on an elevator and have the opportunity to pitch his/her idea during the brief ride.

When/Where:

December 4th - 5:00pm
Schimmel Center, 1 Pace Plaza, NYC

How:

Those interested in entering the Pace Pitch Contest must complete a 350-400 word summary of their venture idea and a 150-200 word biography and submit both documents to bbachenheimer@pace.edu by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 21st, 2008.

Click for more information on how to enter.

Keynote: Startup Blog Cont. »

In partnership with Vator.tv, we have have officially launched our elevator video pitch competition. College Mogul and Vator.tv have recognized that both companies ultimately aim to achieve the same goal of showcasing entrepreneurs and startups. We've teamed up to find the next best college startup company.

Vator.tv is a social network for technology startup companies which gives entrepreneurs a platform to connect with Investors, Acquirers and Media. Likewise, Vator.tv gives Investors useful tools to keep track of companies and industries that interest them, and provides a revolutionary interaction platform to discover the best investment opportunities in technology. We're a big fan of their newsroom that highlights the latest trends in technology and interviews with the latest successful entrepreneurs on the web. If you don't have a profile on their website already, we definitely recommend it. Its a good way to get extra exposure for your company.

As part of the partnership and competition, College Mogul and Vator.tv will provide introductions to three venture capitalist for potential investment to the winning team. As part of the prize, startups will receive press coverage on both sites and receive a few months of free advertising on our site. Below is the information for entering the competition.

Do I qualify? Startup Blog Cont. »

Unlike most business plan competitions, the Venture Lab Competition (hosted at UC Berkeley in collaboration with the Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology) does not require students to submit a traditional business plan. Instead, teams submit more concise material focused on clearly defining the problem, solution, and market size, as well as a report on the venture's current momentum (i.e. a prototype or customers). Semifinalists for the competition quickly present these points to a panel consisting of seven entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and industry experts.

(watch a full video of the competition here)

According to a press release issued just days ago, the winners of the competition touch a wide swath of industries. However, there isn't much much detail available about the teams and their respective plans. We'll be reaching out to CET and the winners of the competition for more information about their winning business plans. For now, here are the brief descriptions of the ventures:

Online apparel retailer MODISTA, led by founders Arlo Faria and AJ Shankar, increases browsing potential in a unique UI powered by specialized image similarity and machine learning algorithms to allow consumers to browse large collections of apparel items, using their visual intuition, just as they would in a traditional store.

Creators of E&M Devices, Eri Takahashi, Applied Science & Technology graduate student and Matt Senesky, PhD, EECS, consulting with Prof. Albert Pisano of ME, designed an electromagnetic energy harvestor to use engine vibrations to power sensor networks in automobiles. Startup Blog Cont. »

The Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative at the Arizona State University provides $200,000 in seed financing each year to 10-15 student startups. 16 startups this last year were chosen out of 150 applicants. Each team is usually granted $5,000 to $20,000. Along with funding, office space and coaching are also provided to help those companies get off the ground.

The ESEI fund is one of a growing number of incubators on campus that are springing up to support student entrepreneurs and help commercial new technologies. Waterloo is another one that we have covered. Startup Blog Cont. »

Over the past 18 years, the MIT $100k Business plan competition has given birth to over 85 companies that amount to over $10 billion in market cap and produce an aggregate exit value of $2.5 billion! It's no wonder that BusinessWeek has labeled it "the most acclaimed business competition." Over 1,000 people participating in over 250 teams this year that were narrowed down to 7 finalists. We would like to congratulate Diagnostics For All for taking home the grand prize of $100,000 and CovalentSolar with taking the Audience Award of $10,000.

I just attended the reception and awards ceremony last night and have to say that it was a remarkably inspiring event with companies providing solar energy solutions, cyber security, mobile applications, and ventures that aim to bring health care to third world countries. It's not only inspiring to see such innovative ideas, but ones that actually have the potential to solve some of the world's biggest problems. Competitions like these that aid entrepreneurs are not only crucial for entrepreneurs themselves, but are crucial in expediting the commercializing of new technologies and innovation developed in the labs of these institutions. The gathering of these world-class entrepreneurs, investors, and potential investors, creates a unique environment that catalyzes the growth of companies that can open up new job opportunities for thousands of people. The companies that have sprung from MIT have already produced over 2,500 jobs. This might not have been possible without the $600 million dollars in Venture Capital funding that the event help to garner. Startup Blog Cont. »

I'm back! People are starting to trickle back into the auditorium. I just sat next to Naveed Hasan, former software developer at Bloomberg and Shadowtv.com, who thinks that Ecovolve and Yan Engines are the current favorites. Ecovolve provides technology to farmers that allows them to actually profit from their compost. Normally compost costs farmers approximately $.10/ton, but with Ecovolve's technology they can actually profit from it. The company is very similar to Husk Power, which we covered recently. I know very little about Yan Engines at this point, but it is actually producing more fuel efficient engines.

For those who are avid gym goers and find it hard to track your routines, you will appreciate the idea that just recently won Ideablob.com's $10,000 monthly challenge. As a passionate weight lifter, I have often pondered some sort of portable touch screen device that syncs with a fitness-based social networking site. Penn State student and inventor, Matt Allison, will be committing the prize money to building the product that he is aiming to have function like a virtual personal trainer that logs workouts, monitors progress, and that will even come equipped with a personal heart rate monitor. The goal is to have the device upload workouts, future advice, daily nutrition information, and progress charts from the company's website so that the user has an interactive utility to maximize efforts and efficiency in the gym.

I completely agree with Allison and his partner, Ron Humer, who realized that many people don't know how to properly exercise and structure routines. I still have trouble balancing and planning routines as well as planning my next steps in the gym even though I have been going and talking to people for years. If designed right, the product has potential to solve many problems. Planning and tracking routines is usually tedious and annoying to do either while working out or after returning home. Searching for the right information is also tiresome and is never readily available when you need it the most in the gym. For these reasons, a service like this could apply to seasoned lifters as well as novices. Startup Blog Cont. »

We recently revealed Tim Draper's advice on securing funding and now DFJ Gotham Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading seed and early stage venture capital firm, will host and judge the second annual DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge at Columbia Business School on May 15th, 2008. Student entrepreneurs from all eight Ivy League schools and NYU will pitch to a panel of judges from DFJ and DFJ Gotham in front of an audience of investors and entrepreneurs, with the winner taking home $250,000 in seed funding. The DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge offers one winning team the richest prize of any student business plan competition.

The pitches will be followed by a networking session during which all participating teams will have the opportunity to network with leading investors, entrepreneurs and representatives from event sponsors, including the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Merrill Datasite, First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, AlwaysOn and the Horn Group.

I will be attending the incredible event and will report back on the teams, presentations and words of wisdom offered by the VCs, entrepreneurs and industry experts.

A team of students from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon won the top prize at the Moot Corp business plan competition this past weekend. Moot Corp, held at the University of Texas at Austin, is considered one of the most important and prestigious competitions in the country. This year's winners presented NeuroBank, which has developed proprietary technology to extract and preserve adult neural stem cells. This was reportedly the ninth year that Tepper has taken the prize (making them the winningest school in the competition's 24 year history), this year beating out 37 competing teams from business schools and universities from around the globe.

The NeuroBank teams consists of Tepper MBA candidate Raymond Sekula, M.D., and Sasha Bakhru, a Ph.D. candidate at the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering. The two scholars have developed technology to:

"...harvest, isolate, expand and store neurologic stem cells from cerebrospinal fluid, a clear bodily fluid around and inside the brain. The technology allows minimally invasive extraction, isolation, expansion and cryopreservation of these stem cells and supports efforts to expand their use in developing treatments for Alzheimer's disease, stroke or traumatic brain injury, among others. In addition, the technology will allow patients to store healthy neural stem cells today to receive cutting-edge treatments for diseases they might develop later in life." Startup Blog Cont. »

One of the greatest ways for a student entrepreneur to begin the launch process is to enter in a business plan competition. The experience forces you to think about all aspects of a business, including the ones typically ignored at the onset such as the competitive landscape, SWOT analysis, technological requirements, sales plan and financial viability. In addition, competitions give entrepreneurs the opportunity to practice presenting in front of highly esteemed investors and industry professionals, a skill necessary for anyone looking to build a business. Finally, many competitions offer cash prizes for top performances, which provide seed funding (with no cost of equity) to begin operations.

Here is a list of business plan competitions that span a variety of geographical locations. Stay on top of deadlines and enter in as many as you can!