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| Eligibility Requirements |
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Who’s Eligible
Individuals, teams or companies that:
- Are Wisconsin residents 18 years old or older and who have a business plan that employs or leverages technology. Examples of technology include an eCommerce platform, a life sciences application or an advanced manufacturing process or system.
- Are a Wisconsin-based firm and/or plan to locate a business in Wisconsin.
- Have not already received private equity* funding for your idea in its current form.
- Contestants who have competed previously in the BPC are eligible to enter. Note: Previous category winners are not eligible to compete with their same plan; second and third place winners are eligible to compete again, so long as they have not received private equity funding for their plan.
*For the purposes of this contest, private equity funding includes ONLY angel or venture funding. It does not include SBIR/STTR, bank loans or funding from friends or family who are not angels or venture capitalists.
Why Enter?
If you have an idea for a high-tech, high-growth business that employs technology:
- BPC judges, mentors and other resources will help you gain the basic skills necessary to create a business plan. You’ll also have many networking opportunities with mentors and potential angel investors, government resources and other advisors.
- The BPC is tailored to and targeted at entrepreneurs with limited independent business experience. Judges look for important factors such as innovation, relevant expertise, competitive advantage and market opportunity.
Submission Guidelines
All intellectual property used in business ideas and/or plans must be owned or controlled by the BPC entrant. For purposes of the BPC, ‘controlled’ is defined as patented, patent pending or licensed.
There is no upper limit to the number of unique ideas or plans a contestant may submit. For example, one contestant may submit an idea for a new paper pulping process to the Advanced Manufacturing category and an idea for new paper-making software to the Information Technology category. The same contestant may have more than one idea/plan advance though the competition in one or more categories.
For Phase 1 IDEA Abstracts, entries must be submitted in one of four categories (Advanced Manufacturing, Business Services, Information Technology or Life Sciences) and are limited to 250-words or fewer. The 250 words allotted for Phase 1 IDEA Abstracts may be distributed in any multiple among four required fields: Product or Service Description, Customer Definition, Market Size and Sales & Marketing Strategy. Once the initial entry period closes, judges are given about two weeks to judge the IDEA Abstracts. Ideas are judged by field on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the highest. For more detail on what information to include in each field, click here.
The Top 50 Phase 1 IDEA Abstracts will advance to Phase 2. During this phase, contestants will be asked to write an Executive Summary. Phase 2 Executive Summaries are limited to 1,000 words or fewer and contestants will be asked to provide greater detail about their idea or company in the following eight required fields: Company Overview, Product or Service Description, Customer Definition, Market Description, Size & Sales Strategy, Competition, Management Team, Financials, Capital Needs. Contestants are given about three weeks to write their Executive Summary. At the close of Phase 2, judges are given about two weeks to judge the Executive Summaries. Ideas are judged by field on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the highest. For more detail on what information to include in each field, click here.
The Top 20 Phase 2 Executive Summaries will advance to Phase 3. During Phase 3, contestants will be asked to write a Phase 3 Business Plan. The length of contestants’ Business Plans will be limited to 20 pages, double spaced, in Times New Roman 12-point font. The 20-page limit includes a cover page detailing contestant contact information (required) and any charts, pictures, graphics, appendices or other visual aids a contestant chooses to include (optional). In writing their Business Plan, contestants will be asked to expand on the same eight categories as included in Phase 2 of the competition. Business Plans will be uploaded to the contest website in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Contestants are given about three weeks to write their Business Plan. At the close of Phase 3, judges are given about two weeks to judge the plans. Ideas are judged by field on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the highest. For more detail on how to write your Business Plan, click here.
Based on judges’ final scores for the Business Plans, one category winner will be chosen from each of the four categories (Advanced Manufacturing, Business Services, Information Technology, Life Sciences). Each of the four category winners will be asked to orally present their plan to a panel of judges. A Grand Prize winner will be chosen from among the category winners based on judges’ scoring of the contestants’ oral presentations. The Grand Prize winner, in addition to first through third places each category, will be announced at the Entrepreneurs’ Conference, June 9-10, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee. |
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