May I have the envelope please

To say that we are extremely proud of the entrepreneurs that entered IdeaWF is an understatement.  When we announce the winner of the competition in December we hope to have every team that entered the competition represented at the luncheon.  In fact, we’re going to give every team that entered one free ticket to the luncheon. 

After several late nights of reviewing the executive summaries, they judges have made their decision about what teams are invited to submit full business plans.  Those teams are (and I have abbreviated some of the titles somewhat to protect their idea):

I hope to have all of the executive summaries back from the judges early next week and will place all seven copies in a sealed envelope that you can pick up in the Lalani Center office.  I will post on the web when the summaries are available.   The judges’ comments should be very helpful as our entrepreneurs plan their next steps.  Remember that there are training sessions on how to write a business plan scheduled for 13, 20, and 22 October. 

Here’s how the judges reached their decision.  After individually reviewing the summaries, the judges discussed the summaries as a group.  A team was not invited to submit a full business plan if, after that discussion, a majority (3 or more) of the judges voted “no” on the summary. As I said in a previous post, not being invited to submit a full plan doesn’t mean the entrepreneur should give up.  They should take the feedback from the judges, make changes as needed, and press on!  Furthermore, they are still welcome at the training sessions and the SBDC is always anxious to help them.  Remember, “professional investors” gave companies like Google and eBay a “no.”  Those founders didn’t give up and aren’t we all happy they didn’t!