Up and Running:

I’m posting this in the early morning just before leaving my New York hotel for the Forbes building near Union Square, to judge the final round of the Forbes.com Boost Your Business $100,000 business plan contest.

This is the fourth year for this annual event and my second as a judge. As I start the day, I have high hopes. Last year at this time we went through an excellent group of five outstanding finalist companies, all of which, as far as I can tell, have done very well since. The winner, ZocDoc, is an online medical doctor appointment scheduler, going strong a year later.

If you’re interested in this contest, its website does an excellent job of inviting you in, to join me and the other judges, and decide on your own. You do get a vote–winners are decided in part by the judges with what happens later today, but then, over the next few weeks, by public vote. You can go to the site, look at the background information, watch the video presentations (including the Q&A sessions with me and the other judges) and decide for yourself.

And the prize is $100,000, including $50,000 in spendable money and another $50,000 worth of advertising.

The companies that enter don’t have to be business students, local to any particular place (although they do have to be based in the U.S.) or working at any particular industry.

If this sounds interesting to you, go look at the site, read the summaries, watch the videos. And enter next year.

One proven way to build a company from zero to winning angel investment is by pitching, listening and correcting. Fill gaps. Strengthen weak points. Listen to your customers.

I watched Precision Plant Systems pitch at the Bend Venture Conference last Friday for the third time in a year.

• The first time I was thoroughly unimpressed; it seemed like science–sensors of nitrogen content in leaves–disguised as a business.
• By the second time, last spring, founders had been out in the field putting technology into the hands of selected farmers, and the farmers wanted more features and better handheld technology. It had become a system, including CPU- and Web-based software, with humans walking around fields noting conditions in handheld units equipped with GPS, so the underlying software could output the results overlaid on maps of actual farmers’ fields. It was much better, but it was still hard to tell whether the business was about the software, the handheld units, the Web, the science or all of the above.
• The third time, last Friday, it was an integrated system with a clear value proposition, making it easy for humans walking in fields to record information that can be retrieved later as part of a system–including notes, sensor data and GPS data. It’s a nice compromise between all-automatic data sensors that might be ideal, and entirely old-fashioned handwritten notes. With a lot of practical touches, like an option for Spanish. And, by the way, the team now includes two people who had been involved in other local ventures competing with this one for local angel money, but were now part of this one. One was an advisor. The other, a software pro, was a featured team member.

And this time around, the listening, the additional development and the fine-tuning paid off. The company took first place at the competition, which means an estimated $120,000 angel investment, pending further due diligence. And that was against some stiff competition.

CEO Larry Plotkin told the local newspaper he was surprised to win. What surprised me, as I watched his pitch, was how much stronger the pitch looked this time around. And the pitch had improved, but then the improved story line was much more significant.

Here’s the summary from the local Bend Bulletin:

Precision Plant Systems is developing a hand-held device to help farmers measure and map the health of their crops. The device is synchronized to meters that measure soil salinity, pH and compaction, leaf greenness, nitrogen, water content and the sugar content of the actual crop. The information is transferred to a map using GPS technology, Plotkin said, providing farmers with a comprehensive overview of what’s happening in their fields, allowing them to make better decisions.

And for me, this is a great example of how the process works when it worked well. It involved the two local Chambers of Commerce, two angel investor groups and a lot of people helping along the way. And a management team prepared to listen and react to criticism. Congratulations to this company, for a victory well-earned.

This was in the New York Times today:

Starting Nov. 13, the new movie, “Ten9Eight,” will be shown at select AMC theaters in cities including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In addition to a theater release, Ms. Mazzio is in talks with several companies to show the film next year on television.

There’s an interesting back story by Mickey Meece, a rgular contributor to the Times on subjects of small business and the like. It’s about Mary Mazzio, filmmaker, who has done one film on entrepreneurs already (Lemonade Stories), and was really interested in doing this one.

While “Lemonade Stories” looked at the impact of mothers on entrepreneurs, her new documentary “Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon,” follows a group of students from “Harlem to Compton and all points in between” as they compete in a business plan contest run by the nonprofit group Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

It looks like it could be fun. Here’s the link:

Practically Speaking – ‘Ten9Eight’ Documents the Dreams of Young Entrepreneurs – NYTimes.com

Lora Kolodny has a nice piece on How to Win a Business Plan Competition in last week’s New York Times.

Since their advent in 1984, when the University of Texas at Austin held its first “Moot Corp,” business plan competitions have proliferated within academia and beyond. More than 50 American colleges and universities host them. So do corporations, nonprofits and government economic development offices.

As you know if you’re reading this blog regularly, I’ve been a judge at several of these, including Moot Corp. I try to post about them on this blog, because I think they offer great experience to entrepreneurs.

And Lora does a real good job, in that piece, of summarizing. It’s definitely worth reading.

Now is a great time to develop your entry for the annual Forbes.com Boost Your Business contest. First prize is $100,000, which comes as $50,000 cash plus $50,000 in advertising.

This is your chance. Unlike the MBA-level contests sponsored by major business schools, this contest is open to just about any company. To enter your business, you have to have at least one salaried employee, be incorporated (LLCs, LLPs and LPs are OK) for less than five years, be a for-profit company and have annual revenue of less than $5 million. You can click here for more contest details.

Speaking from both the judge and entrepreneur points of view, this is an especially interesting business plan contest, for two reasons. First, it’s open to more or less everyone, while most of the business school contents, not surprisingly, have academic requirements; second, it’s for existing businesses, not just startups. I’ve been involved with this contest since last year, and I love it. Good people, good plans and good prizes.

To enter, you start with a 500-word summary, which is due as a web submission by June 30. From there you hope to get selected to give a pitch and, if you make the finals, give a pitch and answer questions from the judges. Even if you don’t win, it’s a great opportunity to focus your pitch, and a great experience.

Many people in the audience were surprised last Thursday when the Willamette Angel Conference announced CenterSpace Software had won the investment decision. It wasn’t the biggest, the newest or the oldest of the ventures entered. It had the lowest projected growth rate of the five finalists and the lowest projected sales for three to five years from now.

I was one of the 19 people who voted Thursday. And I was one of 25 people whose money was at stake. Although CenterSpace wasn’t my first choice, I’m happy with the outcome.

It isn’t always about the biggest market and the highest sales projection. Sometimes investors are also influenced by comfort levels on intangibles, such as being able to dominate a small market, developing very strong positions in new technology and long-term consistent management.

CenterSpace is a software business focused on add-on math products sold to programmers.

I’m in Houston today, very much looking forward to spending today and tomorrow as a judge at the Rice University Business Plan contest. I was a judge here last year as well, and I loved it. It’s an excellent event, very well-run, with a great field of competitors.

As the day starts, I’ve read nine of the 42 plans entered, and the quality is excellent.

Intuit is offering a $25,000 first prize to the best business story. The company says:

It’s easy–just write up a short story about a real situation and a short tip that other businesses could use, and enter it into our contest.

When you create a story, you’ll also help promote your business to the entire Intuit community.

Over the weekend, Intuit extended the deadline to April 24, so there’s still time.

There’s more information about that at this link: Share Your Story and Win.

Here’s a contest with a prize that a real entrepreneur will love: a chance to showcase your new product. And it’s open for entries.

Specifically:

Dallas Market Center, the world’s largest wholesale merchandise resource, today announced a call for entries for its national product search contest–The Next Big Thing. Three finalists will show their products in front of more than 50,000 attendees during the upcoming Dallas Total Home & Gift Market being held June 24-30, 2009.

Sure, money is better–I’ll be blogging next month from two big-money venture competitions offering a half a million or more: Rice’s from Houston and the University of Texas’ Moot Corp in Austin–but eyeballs, publicity and promotion are pretty good, too.

Does this sound like you?

The contest is for anyone who has The Next Big Thing–an artist, product designer, entrepreneur or your next door neighbor. It offers the opportunity for those with great ideas to make their dream a reality.

They’ll be taking applications until April 8, so there’s still time. You can click here to download an application, and click here for more information.

See? I’m trying to do what I can here to get you up and running. These days the whole world needs your new startup.

A good reminder: TechCrunch says Twitter’s getting more investment money, and at a $250 Million Valuation to boot. And Twitter doesn’t make money. It just keeps getting more use, and from more users.

What’s this mean?

1. Big winners can still get more money.
2. Some of those big winners are still on the investment musical chairs track. Get investment money, spend it, then get more money at a higher valuation. Without ever getting money from customers (users, advertisers, sponsors or whatever) as normal revenue. Twitter’s a great example.
3. But caution: This is more money, which is not the same as the first money. Twitter’s already there, and some people with money think it’s worth a lot of money. One way to get more investment is to already have investment. That gives investors a vested interest in keeping you going.

The lack of a revenue model tempts me to post about bubbles and such. I’ve been fooled before by the idea that traffic is worth money. Even so, I still think that at some of these very big winners, such as Twitter and Facebook, traffic is worth money.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’d like to see Twitter make it. I like to use it.

Tulane University’s $40,000 Tulane Business Plan Competition is accepting entrants until Feb. 15. First prizes of $20,000 each are offered for both the traditional entrepreneurship track and the social entrepreneurship track. Entrants have to be seeking outside capital, must be teams of two to six people and must have at least one full-time student as a member.

Thanks to David Miller of Campus Entrepreneurship for picking this one up.

Here’s a really interesting, and still timely, startup pitch competition for the half of the world that’s eligible. The Women 2.0 Startup Competition happens this coming spring. You still have until early April to get the business plan done, and a couple of weeks past that for the 7″x7″ summary on a napkin and the two-minute video. The contest is open to any startup that has at least one woman on the management team, from anywhere in the world.

To get you interested, here’s what the site says about last year’s winner:

Team Koollage won the 2008 Women 2.0 Business Plan Competition, scoring a private meeting with Esther Dyson and business services worth over $15,0000. Team Gaiagy walked away with the People’s Choice Award, as voted by the audience with their cell phones. TechCrunch covered Pitch 2008 here.

Podcasts of all panels, speakers and competition finalists are available here.

I really like the way this one is organized, particularly what you need to submit an entry:

1. A business plan summary. It’s based on a small set of questions, fits almost onto a single page and is a reasonable summary, in my opinion. Particularly since it’s used by judges to weed through the entrants.
2. Submit your business idea on a paper napkin no larger than 7×7 inches. Your name and contact info must be on the napkin so we can match it with your online application. Napkins will be exhibited to the public at Pitch Night.
3. A two-minute video pitch.

That, to my mind, is a good-looking combination of media to get a business idea across.

The process leads up to a pitch night on May 7 in the Silicon Valley. Winners get a meeting with Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, plus a collection of startup-friendly services. Seems like a cool competition to me. I’m glad to be posting about this early enough to give you a chance to actually get your act together in time to enter.