Do you know if there is a business plan contest at your school? If you search online for college business plan contests, you can see a great list of current business plans and contests. In these competitions, you pitch a business plan or idea to judges, students, entrepreneurs, alumni, and sometimes even venture capitalists looking for the next big thing. These contests have become quite popular among students because they have huge cash prizes for those who can win these very competitive contests. Wherever you are in the country, there is bound to be competition for business plans being offered somewhere nearby. Many of these require you to be at least a part-time student, but you don’t always need to be enrolled in the school hosting the competition. If so, you can team up with a student from that school. Do you want to compete? Here is a list of the most important competitions.
o The best known competition across the country is the MIT 100k Entrepreneurship Competition. Six prizes are awarded in the contest. Two in the completion of Entrepreneurship, and two in the Entrepreneurship for Development contest. Each winner of those prizes takes home 30 grand, with the 4 finalists each winning 10 grand.
o New York University’s Stern School of Business has one of the largest cash pools for a contest. They have more than $150,000 at stake. The contest is open to the NYU metro area and offers two tracks. A normal business plan track is offered, as well as a Social Entrepreneurship track which has to do with developing businesses that are socially responsible and useful.
o Purdue University’s Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship offers the largest business plan competition in the life sciences field. The competition is open to any service or product in the life sciences industry and has $134,000 in prizes.
o For graduate students who are excellent at the elevator pitch, there is a contest just for you. The Wake Forest University Elevator Contest has 65 grand in prizes for the ultimate elevator speech.
o All of these competitions so far have been on the East Coast. On the West Coast, the Venture Challenge at San Diego State University has a traditional business plan competition with more than 15 grand prizes for the top competitors.
