The DES’s 2012 business plan competition is about to launch! If you want to enter - and gain a chance at winning the $15,000 FIRST PLACE PRIZE - follow the instructions below carefully! WHO’S ELIGIBLE TO ENTER? ANY undergraduate! WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO? - Come up with a business idea. This can be ANYTHING, as long as you believe it can sell! - Submit a three- to four-sentence proposal for your business idea to the DES blitz account by FRIDAY, JANUARY 27TH. - After you've entered the competition by submitting this short proposal, you'll need to begin to write a two-page executive summary that outlines your business plan. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? - You’ll submit your executive summary to the DES by Friday, February 10th. - Once you submit your executive summary, a qualified committee of alumni will select the top twenty business plans. We'll announce these twenty plans by Friday, February 17th. - The twenty semifinalists will each submit a short pitch deck (PowerPoint; consisting of no more than ten slides) by Friday, February 24th. (Contestants will not present these pitch decks in person.) - From a combination of the twenty semifinalists’ two-page executive summaries and pitch decks, a qualified committee of alumni will select the top five groups to become finalists. Contestants will be notified of these results by Friday, March 9th. - By Friday, March 30th, the five finalists will each submit twenty-minute PowerPoint presentations consisting of no more than twenty slides to the DES. These are the pitch decks that the finalists will present in person during the final round of the contest. - The top five groups will go on to the final round on the evening of Thursday, April 5th. These final five contestants will present their ideas via PowerPoint presentations to a panel of judges, who will select the first, second, and third place winners. - The prize money is as follows: $15,000 for the first place winner, $3,000 for second place, and $2,000 for third place. - More important than the prize money, however, is the exposure and the feedback you'll gain from the process. Having your ideas critiqued by entrepreneurs is by far the most helpful part of the contest – and gaining connections to the contest’s judges is invaluable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you'd like any more information at all on the competition, please blitz "Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Society." We have a sheet with instructions on writing an executive summary - which is actually much simpler than you'd think - and we can give you several sample executive summaries for you to use as templates for your own. For more detailed information on the rules and process of the contest, please see the attached document. Thanks for your interest! DES