Competitor Information

Based on their Executive Summaries, the semi-finalists will be announced on the 24th of February, 2011 (~7 per track).

Semi-finalists will have two deliverables:

Deliverable 1: Business Plans

Business Plans are due Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 5pm EST.

Email them to Howie Rhee, Tim Canavan, and Vidhan Agrawal. hwr2@duke.edu, tac23@duke.edu, va21@duke.edu

• Content Suggestion
• 1 Cover page
• 8 pages of text 
• 2 pages of Financials
• List of Startup Expenses - see an example from Tim Berry, CEO of Palo Alto Software
• Either:
• Cash-in/Cash-out Model per Bobby Bahram’s talk on http://www.dukedees.com 
• Detailed Financial Statements: Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet
• Monthly for first year, then two more years out.  (Three years total is our suggestion, but can be more)
• **Maximum of 15 pages (including the cover)**
• We will not send the executive summary separately, so if you want to include it, you'll need to use it as part of your 15 pages.
• Instructions for formatting
• Single-spaced
• Text must be in least 11-point font
• 1 inch margins on every side
• Instructions for submission
• Must be in PDF format (You can save as a PDF within Microsoft Office with their free add-on)
• Name your file "Your_Team_Name Business Plan.pdf"

For help with writing your business plan, refer to this page. 

Note: Free copies of Business Plan Pro are available to all competitors.

Deliverable 2: Investor Pitch Presentations

On March 23, 2011, semi-finalists will make 7 minute investor pitches in front of a panel of judges and spectators. The panel of judges will provide feedback and will select one finalist and one runner-up per track.  

They will make their decision based on a review of the business plans and the investor pitch.  Even though they have been given the business plans in advance of the competition with the expectation they will read them, there is no guarantee that the business plan will have been read.

Judging Criteria is below.  There is no official "weighting" between the various factors, rather, it's up to the judges to determine the overall score.

Additional Information for Competitors

• See the Schedule of Pitches

• See the Instructions Sheet for Room Leads

• Here's a map to get to your rooms at Fuqua (most rooms are on Level 1 or Level 2)
• See the Judging Guidelines (scroll to the bottom for the PDF).

• Logistics

• 11:00am - 2:00pm at Fuqua Business School.  Arrive at 11:00-11:45am to verify your powerpoint is correct.  Go directly to your competition room (listed above)

• You’re competing against Semi-Finalists in your track

• You will have 7 minutes of uninterrupted presentation, followed by 3 minutes of Q&A.

• You can use a video, demo, props or basically anything. But that time counts towards your 7 minutes.

• No guarantees of things working on the technical side. Be prepared to improvise! And come early to test out your presentation on the computer.

• There is no dress code.  Some dress casually, others dress in business suits.

• Rules on who can pitch
• Each team may have up to two presenters who are the only ones who can speak on behalf of the team (or answer questions).  For special interest tracks, both of the two presenters must be a Duke student that fits the criteria for the special interest track.  The same presenters must pitch in all events and tracks.  See the rules for clarification.
• We reserve the right to disqualify teams at any time, if a rules infraction has occurred.
• Suggestions
• Prepare 10 slides for the allotted time. 
• Get there early to get comfortable in the room.

• Guy Kawasaki’s blog post on 10/20/30 rule: 

  http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#ixzz0gNgz4cDk