Up and Running:

If you’re in the right part of Pennsylvania, and you have an innovative high-tech product, there’s a group that has a $100,000 business plan contest that closes Dec. 17. Take a look.

How about this one: David Miller of Campus Entrepreneurship has announced his First Annual ‘Save Detroit’ Business Plan Competition!.

From dealership strategy and product offerings to brand consolidation and alternative fuels research/ production, the U.S. auto industry needs a completely new business plan. The window for ideas must be wide open. Frankly, I don’t believe Detroit and Washington are capable coming up with the correct solutions.

Because of that, this blog is announcing the 1st Annual Save Detroit Business Plan Competition.

He has the details on his site. You’ll find the deadline, criteria, and so on.

I don’t see a huge prize there, but then, given that this is about saving Detroit, and the problems there are serious, I think it’s a great idea. The automakers have failed to make cars that enough people want to buy, and they’re asking for a bailout because there are so many jobs at stake. I’m not sure what I think about the bailout, but I am sure that David has a great idea here.

You should enter. Come up with a plan. After all, we’re really all in this together, whether we like it or not. Is it our fault? No. Does it affect us? Yes.

It looks like David is judging the plans — which is just fine with me, I trust him to choose the best one.

So, big cash prize or not, I think it’s a good idea. And I hope you send him a plan.

Are you a student or recent graduate building a business around a new technology or invention? Take a look at the National College Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) at nciia.org. Pay special attention to NCIIA’s 2009 Venture Well program, because it’s about finding mentors and money.

It’s also about doing some good. Specifically:

“…designed to provide venture development and seed investment to emerging university entrepreneurs creating scalable, market-oriented solutions to social and environmental problems.”

This program kicked off last Friday and is focused on a March 21, 2009, event called the Forum in Washington, D.C. Teams will be invited to connect with investors and advisors.

Here’s more detail:

Venture Well is now taking applications from student teams. All selected teams will be eligible for investment by the NCIIA and will receive training and ongoing support from Venture Well advisors as well as NCIIA’s nationally recognized Invention to Venture (I2V) mentoring program.

Interested teams must apply to the NCIIA by December 19, 2008, at www.venturewell.org.

Venture Well focuses on low-cost and highly scalable solutions for both Western and “Bottom of the Pyramid” consumers in fields of health, wellness and the environment.

Don’t miss this opportunity to watch–and judge–an excellent business plan contest as it happens, complete with easy-to-watch Web videos of the contest, including videos of presentations and judges’ questions. That’s available now at the Forbes.com Boost Your Business page on Forbes.com. This is a great example of what a business plan contest is like. Watch the presentations, the questions and the answers.

If you’re a learn-by-example person, these are great examples. The five companies included were chosen from among more than 1,500 entrants. For each one, you get an overview of the business plan plus the video of the presentation.

And, as a special bonus, unlike any other business venture contest I’m aware of, in this one you also get a vote. These five companies are competing for a $100,000 prize. As you’ll see on the website, you get to click on your favorite and vote for the one you think should win.

The prize is supposed to go to the company that can make the best use of the $100K.

I was one of the judges and got to ask some of the questions. Now the videos are available, so you can see for yourself.

You can register for this competition now, at this page. Registration closes November 1.

I notice they’ve been calling it the $100,000 annual Wal-Mart Better Living Business Plan Competition, but I guess that amount is the combined total, because the winners take $20,000 for first place, the way I read it. Here are the details on the registration page:

The Wal-Mart Better Living Business Plan Competition is an opportunity to present plans for a profitable business or product with a positive impact on the environment. This year, a total of 32 schools will be chosen to field school-wide competitions, and winners will attend one of eight on-campus regional competitions. Regional winners go to Arkansas to present in front of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executives, and have the opportunity to win $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 for their idea! The 32 competing schools will be selected in November 2008, and the final competition will be held in the spring of 2009. We are looking for a diversity of perspectives, so all types of schools and programs are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to schools who can field more than one team to compete at the school level, and either host or provide support for students to attend the regional competitions.

The page is hosted by Net Impact, a website focusing on business schools and their students.

Amazon.com has a $100,000 prize available for the best startup using its Amazon Web Services (storage, hosting, etc., for what seems to me to be amazingly attractive pricing and equally attractive peace of mind–after all, it’s Amazon).

The bad news is that this thing closes Friday.

Click this link to go to the page and fill in your entry. Amazon is asking for basic name and address info plus several simple text entries.

1. A summary of your idea.
2. The stage you’ve reached.
3. How you’re using Amazon Web Services.
4. What is the problem you solved?
5. Who is your target customer?
6. Who is your competition?

From now until Friday is plenty of time. Right?

Would you like a cool $100,000? I think you’re too late for this one, this year at least, but file this away . . . particularly if you’re in the Pacific Northwest. This is Christopher Griffin, on his Startup Thinking blog, about the Zino Zillionaire event:

The technology winner was Gogomo, a shopping widget/service that enables consumers to click an ad and purchase the advertised products without leaving the site they are on (as opposed to jumping off the site to Amazon or elsewhere), similar in several ways to Adgregate Markets, who presented at last week’s TechCrunch50 in San Francisco. On the non-technology front, the winner was CHERRish Corp., creator of a cherry-based nutritional beverage claiming anti-inflammatory properties, similar in several ways to pomegranate-based products by POM Wonderful. Each company will receive a $50,000 investment, with CHERRish winning an extra $50,000 for best of show, for a total of $150,000.

I’m very happy about the proliferation of business plan or venture competitions, which started with the University of Texas’ Moot Corp competition in 1984 and include dozens of them now. I’ll be one of the judges at the Forbes.com $100K contest in New York next month. This one, however, seems to be intriguingly different from a lot of them. First of all, most (although not the Forbes.com one) are put on by graduate schools of business. Look at how Griffin describes this one:

Zino is a very interesting blend of social circle built around a love of wine, and an investment forum. I know that sounds odd, but they seem to make it work–the companies they funded last year (END//outdoor and Healionics) reported back today on 12 months of high growth, deals closed and products launched. And I have to say, the environment was pretty fun, too.

And finishing up on those six-figure contests, I got an e-mail yesterday about a much smaller prize, but much easier entry, contest for a $1,000 prize for the best business idea. That’s an offer from Sam Wyly, billionaire entrepreneur, as part of the promotion for his new book, 1,000 Dollars and an Idea.

What you have to do, for that one, is go to the website and fill in the form with name, contact information and an explanation of your idea. You type it in right there, on the Web. You have until Halloween to do it. Good luck with that.

Interesting … click here for more information …

Today the Central Valley Business Times announces a $250,000 business plan contest accepting nationwide entries. Finalists will compete in October. Entrants have to have a convincing business plan and be at least 18 years old. That’s it as far as entry requirements.

“Anyone who has an idea for an innovative new business, and a business plan to match–or who has already started and is growing a business with a promising business plan–is welcome to enter,” says the sponsor, the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The Lyles Center, by the way, is at California State University, Fresno. Click here for the fully detailed Web announcement. Read down past the sponsorship discussion and the local business justification to the details, including the unusually open entry.

The top 10 finalists will travel to Fresno for a two-day competition Oct. 2 - 3, where they will present their business plans to a panel of judges. On Oct. 4, the winner–and recipient of $100,000 in cash and $150,000 worth of in-kind services–is to be announced during halftime at the Fresno State Bulldog football game.

Entries will be accepted beginning June 1.

In the wake of last week’s Moot Corp competition in Austin, Texas, I picked up the list of feeder competitions that lead to the Moot Corp. Winners in these competitions are invited to compete at the Moot Corp.

If things go as they normally do, these venture competitions will be held again for the next venture competition season, beginning this fall and running through next April. If you have connections with any of these, it’s a great experience; I recommend you get into it. Normally you do have to have direct involvement with an MBA-level program, ideally as a student. If you aren’t a student but know somebody who is, you can become involved by recruiting that person onto a team, because each team normally has to include one MBA student.

Idea to Product Competition
Early November
Hosted by The University of Texas at Austin
Contact info@ideatoproduct.org

The John Heine Entrepreneurial Challenge
Early December
Hosted by the Brisbane Graduate School of Business
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Contact Belinda Hopgood at b.hopgood@qut.edu.au

Georgia Bowl
February
Hosted by Kennesaw State University
Contact Charles Hofer at jrmh@bellsouth.net

Cardinal Challenge
February
Hosted by the University of Louisville
Contact Van G.H. Clouse at clouse@louisville.edu

UC Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition
February
Hosted by the University of Cincinnati
Contact Charles Matthews at ecenter@uc.edu

FGV Latin Moot Corp Competition
March
Hosted by Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Contact Laura Cristina Pansarella at cenn@fgvsp.br or Rene Jose Rodrigues Fernandes at rene.rodrigues@fgvsp.br

Northwest Venture Championship
March
Hosted by Boise State University
Contact Kent E. Neupert at kneupert@boisestate.edu

Camino Real Venture Competition
March
Hosted by University of Texas at El Paso
Contact Nancy Lowery at nlowery@bnsl.org.

Thammasat Asia Moot Corp® Competition
March
Hosted by Thammasat University, Thailand
Contact Bill Randall at info@asiamootcorp.org.

McGinnis Venture Competition
March
Hosted by Carnegie Mellon University
Contact Art Boni at boni@andrew.cmu.edu

CEDIC New Venture Championship
March
Hosted by the Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization
Contact Gary Cadenhead at cadenheadg@mail.utexas.edu

Venture Challenge
March
Hosted by the Entrepreneurial Management Center
San Diego State University
Contact Sarah Bonura at sbonura@projects.sdsu.edu

IBK Capital-Ivey Business Plan Competition
March
Hosted by the Richard Ivey School of Business
University of Western Ontario
Contact Eric Morse at emorse@ivey.uwo.ca or Ellen Brown at embrown@ivey.uwo.ca

Wake Forest MBA Elevator Competition
March
Hosted by Wake Forest University
Contact Donna Fulp at Donna.Fulp@mba.wfu.edu

Lunar Ventures
March 28 – 30, 2008
Hosted by Colorado School of Mines
Contact Gary Cadenhead at info@8clunarventures.com

Rice University Business Plan Competition
April 3 to 5, 2008
Hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
Rice University
Contact Brad Burke at rbpc@rice.edu

Stuart Clark Venture Challenge
April 3 to 5, 2008
Hosted by the Asper Centre for Entrepreneurship
University of Manitoba
Contact Rob Warren at Robert_Warren@umanitoba.ca

Utah Entrepreneur Challenge
April 5, 2008
Hosted by University of Utah
Contact Leonard Black at Leonard.Black@business.utah.edu

New Ventures World Competition
April
Hosted by the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Contact Glenn Friendt at friendt2@unl.edu or entprenshp@unlnotes.unl.edu

New Venture Championship
April
Hosted by the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship
University of Oregon
Contact Marianne Rosen-Murr at mtmurr@uoregon.edu

Uniandes Moot Corp Business Plan Competition
April
Hosted by Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Contact Rafael Vesga at rav@adm.uniandes.edu.co

OFC Venture Challenge
April
Hosted by Clark Atlanta University
Contact Mohammad Bhuiyan at 404-880-8657 or ofcvc@hotmail.com

USF-PSI International Business Plan Competition
April 24 to 26, 2008
Hosted by the University of San Francisco
Contact Mark Cannice at cannice@usfca.edu

Launch Silicon Valley 2008 is accepting executive summaries for about one more week, until May 9. This is the best kind of venture contest — sponsored by venture capital for venture capital — looking at what it wants to be the best and most interesting startups around. Organizers want startups that are already launched, that have something to show, but haven’t been around very long.

The prize? The right kind of audience. Journalists, other opinion makers and, generally, people with money to invest.

For more information, go to launchsiliconvalley.org.

So last month the idea elevator was set up in the business school at the University of Oregon. Go in, start recording… you have 30 seconds. The results are posted at the U of O’s New Venture Championship site as a prelude to the event in Portland, Oregon, at the end of this week. And here’s a selection that’s being shared (and if for any reason you don’t see the video here, then click this link):

The NVC awarded $100 for the best 30-second idea and a $100 gift certificate for the worst. Hmmm… there’s an intercollegiate elevator speech contest (25 teams from five countries) that kicks off the event Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Embassy Suites. It’s open to the public all day Friday and Saturday.