Rules, Guidelines and Submission Requirements

1. This competition is open to all full and part time graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in a college or university during the academic year of 2007/2008 (September 1, 2007 to August 31, 2008). Students who graduated in the preceding academic year are not eligible to participate; however, an exception will be made for students who both wrote their business plans for academic credit and graduated during the preceding summer. An exception will also be made for students from universities south of the Equator that follow a different academic year.
2. The business plan must have been prepared under faculty supervision and for academic credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study.
3. A competitive team may consist of an individual or a group of students. Teams should not exceed 5 persons. One graduate team and one undergraduate team from each university may compete. Graduate and undergraduate teams will compete in separate divisions.
4. Each team may submit only one business plan to the competition.
5. Each team must submit an Intent to Compete form, Team Eligibility form, and Executive Summary no later than February 15, 2008 (Fri). The faculty advisors of the top 12 undergraduate and top 12 graduate plans will be notified of their acceptance to compete by 5:00 pm (CST) February 18, 2008 (Mon).
6. Your Official Acceptance Form is due Febuary 22, 2008 (Wed). If a team enters into the competition and drops out after Febuary 22, 2008, their home school will be ineligible to compete in the New Ventures World Competition in 2009 and 2010.
7. The management team outlined in the plan may contain the names of individuals who are not associated with the university. However, all presenting group members must have a key role on the management team (i.e., CEO, COO, VP, etc.) and have significant ownership positions. Non student members of the venture's management team may not participate in the presentations.
8. The business plan must represent the original work of each competitor. A signed statement shall accompany each submission indicating that the business plan is the original work of the author(s). The author(s) will retain all rights to the plan regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition (except as stated below in item #18). Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non disclosure statements for any participant.
9. The business plan must be for a seed, start up or early stage venture and must address the entire business concept (including implementation). Proposals for the buy out or expansion of an existing company, tax shelter opportunities, real estate syndications, subsidiaries and other consulting projects or analyses are not eligible. The judges will be looking for new ventures, not just a distribution play in the American market of a product already being sold in another market. The business should not have generated revenues, raised outside equity capital, legally set up a venture identity nor have undertaken any other formal startup activities prior to the Fall Semester or quarter, 2007. The business may license technology from another company for manufacturing and/or distribution purposes. Revenue streams from the business should not be based solely on deriving revenues from the licensing of its own technologies. The plans may not contain fabricated information about (but not limited to) the following: backgrounds, experience and educational level of members of the management team; stage of product development; product performance claims; market survey results.
10. Plans are limited to 20 pages (typed and double spaced) of text. This includes the executive summary and summary financial data. 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.
11. Summary financial data should include 1) operating statements that are monthly for the first year and quarterly for year two, 2) cash flow statement for fiscal year end for the first year, 3) balance sheet for fiscal year end for the first year, and 4) funds required/used. Include and explanation of the offering to investors, indicating how much money you want, the expected ROI, and the proposed debt and/or equity structure of the deal. Also, delineate the possible exit strategies.
12. Appendices should be included only when they support the findings, statements and observations in the plan. Because of the expected number of teams/plans entering the competition, reviewers and judges may not be able to read all of the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (20 pages) must contain all pertinent information in a clear and concise manner.
13. For ease in handling, we request that all copies of business plans be professionally bound (i.e., velo, spiral, tape). Please, no 3-ring binders.
14. Each team accepted into the competition must submit an Official Business Plan Submittal form with 12 printed copies of the written business plan as well as an electronic version of the plan (emailed to: entprenshp@unlnotes.unl.edu). The form and business plans are due at the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln no later than 12:00 pm (CST), March 28, 2008 (Fri).
    
    Mail to:
    University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship
    217 CBA
    1240 R Street
    P.O. Box 880487
    Lincoln, NE 68588-0487
    

    Note* May not be deliverable to P.O. Box. Please use physical address instead.

15. Copies of the business plans will be distributed to the panels of judges for evaluation of the written plan prior to each round of the competition. We will make every effort to return the plans with judges’ comments to the teams after the competition.
16. Teams will give a short (15 minute) presentation utilizing visual aids, and then engage in a 15 minute question and answer where the judges will ask questions and request clarification of the plan. Team members can then respond to the concerns immediately. There will be approximately 10 minutes between each presentation for set-up/preparation. Judges will meet with each team for 10 minutes of further private feedback following each round.
17. Teams will compete in a preliminary competition on Friday morning. The winner of each track will advance to the final round on Saturday morning. Teams who finish in second place in their preliminary tracks will compete in a second chance round competition on Friday afternoon. One team from this second chance round will advance to the final round on Saturday morning.
18. Student entrants agree to allow University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship (NCE) to videotape the oral presentations and the Q&A and feedback sessions. NCE may market and distribute these videos. Entrants agree to allow NCE to broadcast final presentations and Q&A and feedback sessions on television and/or the Internet.

19. Judges Evaluation Guidelines (61k PDF)