Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Insights and Opinions: Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan Competition
For our Insights and Opinions section this afternoon, we have Frank Peters of the Frank Peters Show, who is back with another top ten list--a bit less controversial than his last list of Top Ten Lies Angels Tell. This time, Frank gives the Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan Competition.
I'm a judge in a local university's business plan competition. Over the past few years I've been involved in different ways in the UC Irvine, Paul Merage School of Business, Business Plan Competition. Last year I was invited by a mentor to critique his team's PowerPoint presentation. They came in 2nd place. This year I'm mentoring a team all my own and enjoying it very much. However, the ideas here come from my role as a competition judge. There's a large field of 15 finalists and I'm a judge for the 4 software sector finalists, so there's no overlap, no conflict with the team I've mentored. Over the past week I've had to review these 4 business plans and fill out an evaluation form. In the process I've found myself lamenting several consistent issues, so I'm going to wrap them all up here in these ten ways to game, I mean win the competition.
#1 Be kind to the judges. You haven't met them, you won't know who they are until judgment day, but take it from me, they're all busy. They've committed a day to act as judge, plus a chunk of their weekend has been given up to critique your plan. How to be kind? (More...)
Read the rest of Frank's Top 10 Ways to Win a Business Plan Competition.