We’re in the middle of business plan competition season, and we’re seeing some great plans, and a lot of common mistakes. We’ve assembled some of our best advice on business competitions, below.

Ask Tim Berry – Tips for Business Plan Competitions

• Don’t Shade Your Eyes, Summarize: “I don’t care if you’re the next big thing, with an unimaginably exciting new idea and a great team, you can still create a meaningful summary in 10 pages.”
• Writing an Executive Summary: Hit these highlights, and customize your Executive Summary for the intended audience.
• Estimating Unknown Expenses: How do you predict expenses? Normally you need some experience. If you have no idea, then you might think again about starting this business.
• Why not do your best? If you’re going to a graduate level intercollegiate and international venture competition, ask somebody to edit the plan for simple practical writing. Make sure your projected income and balance link up correctly with the cash flow, and that the cash flow understands working capital. Use business charts to illustrate the main numbers.
• How to Succeed in Competitions: Competitions normally receive far more entrants than they can practically screen any other way, so the business plan is the critical document. This white paper explains how to customize and improve the output you create in Business Plan Pro to meet the sophisticated needs of a venture contest.

How to lose a business plan competition

• Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes: From “hockey stick” forecasts to technobabble to numbers without charts, Tim Berry discusses the most common planning mistakes in business plan competitions, and why they irritate judges.
• Big Mistake: On Business Plans, Cash, Investment, and Whose Peace of Mind Matters: You don’t ask for investment so you can have cash in the bank.
• Big Mistake: Business Plans And Investor Returns: Investors care about returns, but you can’t predict them accurately. Show them credible management, sales, and market knowledge instead.

Presenting your plan to judges:

Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule: How listening to crappy business plan pitches is giving Guy Ménière’s disease.

Ask Tim Berry – The Elevator Pitch

Sara Prentice Manela
Editor

The Rice Business Plan Competition is now accepting applications for the 2009 competition, to be held April 16 – 18 in Houston, TX. Only 36 teams will have the opportunity to compete in this prestigious competition, and one lucky team will walk away with more than $675,000 in cash and prizes.

All interested teams must submit an Intent to Compete no later than February 13, 2009 to be eligible for the competition. Palo Alto Software is proud to once again sponsor the competition and provide all teams who submit an Intent to Compete by the February 13th deadline with a free download of Business Plan Pro Premier Academic Edition software.

If you meet the eligibility requirements and are interested in the opportunity, I would highly encourage you to submit an Intent to Compete. I attended the competition in 2007 and can honestly say it was an experience I will never forget. It is by far one of the best business plan competitions out there today.

Kristen Langham
Manager of Business Development
Palo Alto Software, Inc.