Business Plan Competitions

http://steveblank.com/2009/05/07/business-plan-competitions-2/

by _pius • 17 years ago

10 8 17 years ago

dmarques1• 17 years ago

Interesting article...

HN: if you could completely rebuild business plan competitions, what would they look like? Would it still even have a business plan involved?

alain94040• 17 years ago

It would look pretty much like YC actually:

You have 3 months. Go build something that people want. Figure it out as you go. Iterate, refine.

To be fair, you have to think of business plan competitions as a teaching tool for students. You don't tell a CS student to go out and write an operating system on day 1. You teach them structure first.

The same can be said with those competitions. It's a way to force students to think about all the issues of starting a business or launching a product, without actually doing it.

Personally, I'm on the DIY camp. I learn better by doing. But you need a bit of both.

BenS• 17 years ago

Steve overlooks an important part of the competition - the opportunity to win non-dilutive financing in a time where fundraising is hard.

jaydub• 17 years ago

Very true, although perhaps what Steve is trying to say here is that the opportunity cost of a business plan is (in his experience) a lot higher than most people think. Maybe you win several thousand dollars, however, if you spent that energy on developing an actual business you'd likely be much closer towards the realization of your goal.

"I have seen students spend well over a year refining a business plan competition pitch" - I think this is his main gripe. If you can do it without much additional effort why not.

skmurphy2• 17 years ago

The only non-dilutive financing is customer revenue.

lacker• 17 years ago

Not true. Some competitions (like Facebook's last fbfund competition) just give you money.

puzzle-out• 17 years ago

Major problem with the business plan competitions I've been to is the IP. One Conversation went: presenter: its a great idea. judge: so what is it. presenter: i can't really say, just trust me. On the flip side, when a friend of mine won a competition he then couldn't patent it, as he had declared it in a room full of people. As a result, most of the more open competitions tend to focus on quirky ideas, that could not be patented anyhow. I often find they are little more than pr exercises to lift the profile of the entrepreneurs society and/or business school, not bad in itself, i guess, but I always get more of an institutional feel about them.

skmurphy2• 17 years ago

Steve had added another item to a the list of things customers don't ask: "Can I see you business plan?" "Can I see your college grades/transcript?" "Is this patented? How many patents do you have?"

Much of the advice entrepreneurs get for fund raising is at best orthogonal if not antithetical to actually getting customers.

Business Plan Competitions

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