The ninth annual Tufts $100K Business Plan Competition, sponsored by the Gordon Institute's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (ELP), to be held this year on April 24, received a record 109 applications.
The number of applicants topped the previous record of 36, and the number of finalists who were selected increased from 10 to 13, according to Director of the ELP James Barlow. The 13 finalists included entries from faculty members, alumni and undergraduate and graduate students, with seven from the classic venture track and six from the social entrepreneurship track.
"It was a very tough decision?making process, since we had a lot of excellent candidates," Inge Milde, director of the 2013 Tufts Business Plan Competition, said.
The competition's winners receive $100,000 in cash and services, and contestants can choose to apply to the classic venture competition or the social entrepreneurship competition.
The Tufts contest is unique in allowing businesses to focus on social impact as a primary goal through the social entrepreneurship track as well as economic impact through the classic venture track, she added. The annual contest has been profiled by Forbes Magazine as one of the 15 biggest university?sponsored competitions, according to the competition's website. Milde said that this year the combined effect of a reduced barrier to entry and a marketing outreach push led to the large increase in applicants.
"Something that's different this year from previous years is that we did not require a full business plan for entry," she said. "We required essentially an executive summary."
A full business plan would be a 30? to 40?page document that details full financials, marketing plans and the full operations of a business, which may deter potential applicants from applying, according to Milde.
"A lot of students don't necessarily know how to write a business plan, so we changed the format so that they had to go on and answer a bunch of questions about their idea rather than just write a full business plan," Barlow said.
A complete business plan will be required for finalists in preparation for the competition, but applicants will be able to develop their plans with the assistance of mentors provided by ELP, according to Milde.
She believes that ELP's increased marketing efforts this year - featuring kickoff events at a number of Tufts schools - led to such a large number of applicants.
ELP tried to market the competition to the students who are actively involved in entrepreneurship on campus and engage with them, according to Barlow.
"We spent a lot of time over the past six months meeting with those students and doing a huge marketing push," he said.
Barlow said that Tufts has an incredible alumni base that provides opportunities for student entrepreneurs, which this competition can help to amplify.
"The big question is trying to find something more meaningful and productive, and we tried to communicate that through marketing and the way in which we structured the program and the application," he said.
To select finalists from all the applicants, 30 screeners - faculty members and alumni - scored the teams on different categories, according to Barlow. The scores were recorded, and then the screeners discussed which business pitches had the most meaningful technologies and best potential for growth.
"There's a huge unpacked potential," Barlow said. "We're really focusing on getting more students involved and figuring out how we can contribute or construct to a productive entrepreneurial process here at Tufts, and not be one just thinking about entrepreneurship, but one that is actively producing ventures and producing successful outcomes."
