While many students may be interested in becoming entrepreneurs or have a fabulous business idea, business plan competitions requiring multi-page entries can still seem time-consuming and tedious.
But for students who can fit their ideas on the back of a napkin, there is one competition that is perfect.
MarketingExperiment.com, an Internet marketing research laboratory, is holding its first competition that offers the winner a business jump-start package worth approximately $100,000 – and to enter, all students have to do is write a business plan on a 5-by-7-inch index card.
“During the past two decades, there have been numerous stories of businesses that raised their initial funding based upon an idea they initially sketched out on the back of a napkin,” said Flint McGlaughlin, director of MarketingExperiment.com. “That is where the idea for our business plan competition stems from and what sets us apart from other similar competitions.”
The prize will include a six-month marketing research partnership with the company, a three-month public relations campaign with Politis Communications, a chance to pitch the business idea to leading firms and possible office space in MarketingExperiment.com’s Florida-based research facility.
MarketingExperiments.com does research to determine what types of companies are successful in Internet marketing. The company engages in primary and secondary research and publishes results in The Marketing Experiments Journal, an online publication with marketing research and reports about online marketing techniques.
The company partners with clients such as the New York Times, Reuters News Service LLC and USA Health Care for their experiments.
Finalists in the competition are judged based on the clarity of their plan, the strength of their management team, the force of their value proposition and possible marketing opportunities.
“If the idea is sound and supported by reliable core principles, then it is something we are interested in supporting because it will most likely be very successful,” McGlaughlin said.
The contest is open to students with a good business idea or even an existing business. The deadline for entries is Feb. 25, and ten finalists will be chosen by Feb. 28.
Each will be asked to submit additional information, and all 10 finalists will be featured in the Marketing Experiments Journal.
The winner of the business plan competition will be announced by March 31.
“I believe there are a lot of students with great business ideas that would be a perfect fit for the competition because it is easy to enter and won’t require a large time commitment,” said Rachel Atkinson, a spokeswoman for the company.
To apply, students should go to http://www.marketingexperiments.com/napkin1-009.asp.
