For the first time ever, the Caltech Entrepreneurship Club is holding a business plan competition. The competition will last all year and includes three rounds of judging. Slides explaining the rules and regulations of the competition are attached to this post--feel free to download copy. All 2nd Round entries to are due Friday, April 27th at noon.

A second round entry in the competition consists of a 5-page Executive Summary of your business idea.  This Executive Summary should include sensible financial projections as well as in-depth discussion of your primary target market, notable competitors, and future strategies.  Font size should be no smaller than 12 point, Times New Roman; margins should be no smaller than 1.0 inches. Entries longer than five pages will be rejected immediately. Recently, we have decided to allow Round 2 entries from new teams, ONLY if your team contains a current MBA student at USC or UCLA.

Our final round of judging will occur on May 31st, 2012, 4:00–6:00 pm. Our panel of judges includes acclaimed entrepreneur, author, and Caltech Trustee, Milton Chang, PhD; Tom Lloyd, the Caltech Alumni Association Board president; and Richmond Wolf, former director of Caltech's Office of Technology Transfer.

The winning business will get a generous gift of $2500 from the Caltech Associates; 6-months free rent at the Business Technology Center in Altadena; a company formation package and 'start-up' legal strategy from Jon Atzen, venture capital/corporate partner at SheppardMullin; plus a free economic valuation of any pertinent technologies. The top three teams will be allowed to present their companies to the Pasadena Angels or Tech Coast Angels at an investment screening meeting. In addition, these three teams will get the opportunity to work with StartEngine, founded by Howard Marks.

All members of the Caltech eClub, regardless of whether or not they are at Caltech, are welcome to enter the competition. The one stipulation we have is that each team must contain at least one member of the Caltech community. We have created a LinkedIn group called "Caltech eClub Business Plan Competition" specifically for the purpose of helping facilitate team formation. Please feel free to add yourself by clicking here.