Official Rules, Guidelines and Submission Requirements
Eligibility
The business plan must be prepared under faculty supervision and for credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study. Each participating university or college may select one team to compete. Students may submit only one plan to the competition.
The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team. A signed statement by student team members and faculty shall accompany the submission indicating that the business plan is the original work of the author(s). The author(s) shall retain all rights to the plans regarding its use prior to and following the competition (except as stated in item #11 below). The plans may not contain any fabricated information about (but not limited to) the background, experience, or education of the management team, the stage of product development, product performance claims, or market survey results.
The competition is open only to graduate students. At least one graduate student must be a member of the management team. All graduate students, not just MBA candidates, are eligible, including executive MBAs. Non-students, or undergraduate students, may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture; however, only graduate students may participate in the competition. In other words, only graduate students may present the plan and answer questions from the judges. The maximum size of a team is five (5) students.
The competition is for graduate students enrolled in the current academic year. Students who graduated in the preceding academic year are not eligible to participate; an exception will be made for students who both wrote their business plans for academic credit and graduated during the preceding summer.
The competition is for graduate student created, managed and owned ventures. In other words, graduate students are to have played a major role in conceiving the venture, to have key management roles and to own significant equity. An equity position of less than 20% will be suspect and require the students to show evidence that they were a major cause in the venture creation. One objective of this rule is to exclude ventures formed and managed by non-students who have given token equity to MBAs for writing their business plan.
The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up or early stage. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and dependent spin-outs from existing corporations. The licensing of technologies from universities, research labs or other organizations that have not been commercialized previously is not excluded and is encouraged.
Ventures with revenues in prior academic years are excluded. The history of a team member working on an idea or new technology in previous academic years or even prior to entering graduate school does not exclude a venture, if there were no revenues prior to the current academic year.
The competition is an educational experience. Teams should respect the rights of their opponents. Squatting or copying of company names or logos will not be tolerated. However, teams are encouraged to trademark, service mark, or register their names and logos. The UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research reserves the right to disqualify at any time, any team that violates the rules, regulations or the spirit of the competitions, thereby acting in a less than professional manner. In addition, the Spirit of Enterprise Competition reserves the right to select a substitute venture team of their choice in order to maintain a minimum of nine to twelve (9-12) participating teams.
Business Plan
Plans are limited to 20 pages (typed and double-spaced with 12 point font size) of text, excluding cover and title page. Detailed spreadsheets and appropriate appendices can follow the text portion of the plan but will be limited to 10 pages. In total, the plan should not exceed 30 pages. Appendices should be included only when they materially support the findings, statements, and observations of the plan.
For ease in handling, please professionally bind the business plan (i.e. velo, spiral, tape, etc.). No three-ring binders.
All submissions must include the name of the school and the name, address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address of the sponsoring faculty member and the team members.
Intent to Compete form due on the Friday of the second full week of December. Submitting the Intent to Compete form does not bind the school to submitting a business plan team.
The Official Business Plan Submittal Form is due Monday of the third week of January.
Ten (10) copies of the plan are due on or before the fourth Friday of January. Copies will be distributed to the judges. Plans will be returned to the teams after the competition. The UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research requests a copy of your business plan for our files. An electronic copy should also be zipped and emailed to ecenter@business.uc.edu.
Submissions should be mailed to:
Charles H. Matthews, Ph.D.
Attn: Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition
Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research
College of Business, University of Cincinnati
501 Carl H. Lindner Hall
2600 Clifton Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0165
513-556-7133
Presentations
Teams will be given twenty (20) minutes to present their business plans followed by a ten (10) minute Q&A. There will be approximately 10-15 minutes between each presenting team for set-up preparation. Teams should bring a copy of their presentation on a CD-Rom, jump drive, etc. for uploading before the beginning of the event.
A team may not observe other presentations in their judging track or question & answer sessions until after they have presented their own plan. During the semi-finals, teams may observe presentations and questions & answer sessions from other judging tracks.
All public sessions of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question & answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality to any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions.
The Rights of the UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research
Due to the nature of the competition, we do not ask judges, reviewers, staff, or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.
By participating in the competition, entrants agree that neither the University of Cincinnati, the UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research (E-Center) nor their designated organizations assume any liability whatsoever for any disclosures of business plan information which may be made (whether inadvertently or otherwise) by any judge, reviewer, staff member, audience member or other individual connected with, participating in, viewing, hearing, or receiving information from the competition.
The Center for Entrepreneurship Education and Research at the University of Cincinnati, the organizer of the UC Spirit of Enterprise Business Plan Competition, may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes, and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plan and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at the UC Spirit of Enterprise Competition. Students retain all proprietary rights. The University may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items is used by the University solely to defray the costs of future UC Spirit of Enterprise Competitions. The University has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.
Judges Evaluation Guidelines
Evaluation will take place in two parts. Judges will evaluate the written plans prior to the competition. Judges will again evaluate plans based on the oral presentation by each team. Both evaluations utilize a point-scoring system, which will be recorded and totaled to assist the judges in determining the winner. The point scoring system is used ONLY as a GUIDE for the judges. The final decision is not necessarily based on the number of points scored, but rather on the judges' qualitative evaluation and consultations with each other during their deliberation session following the presentations. Judges will ultimately consider the entire business concept looking at overall feasibility, combined with significant capital gains potential, attractive investment possibilities and actual implementation.
Judges will consider each plan using the following criteria:
The reviewers and judges will consist of entrepreneurs, investors, professional service providers and academics experienced in the entrepreneurial process. Teams will not only have the opportunity to present their plans to these judges, but will also meet with the judges' panel after presentations conclude, in order to receive informative and valuable feedback.
Key Dates for UC Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition
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December 18, 2009 |
Intent to Compete Form due |
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January 22, 2010 |
Official Business Plan Submittal Form due |
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January 29, 2010 |
10 copies of Final Plan due |
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February 25, 2010 |
Evening Reception, Tech Check, Exhibits |
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February 26, 2010 |
UC Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition |
