A Few Good Links...

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and is hard at work on their business plans.  Selcuk surfed around and found a few links that should be helpful in writing a plan.

www.mentorsphere.com : Mentorsphere is a great resource for all contestants to communicate with their mentors as well as outside resources. It is a network that gives you the opportunity to share your documents with the rest of your group. We encourage everyone to register and create their own mentorsphere.

http://www.bizplanit.com/free.html : BizPlanIt provides high-quality free business plan resources for the do-it-yourself business plan writer. There are a range of resources on this website that you can use to write your business plan.

http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/index.html : Small Business Administration has many resources on how to start and run your own business. The section on writing a business plan offers many tips and resources that should help you throughout the process of writing your business plans.

Also check out the new documents we uploaded: Business Plan Structure and How to Write a Business Plan

Finalists and First Workshop

Congratulations to our 10 finalists!

Amit Mukherjee
Christian Theriault
Josh Shulman
Pietro Rea Maravi
Andrew Knight
Seth Priebatsch
David Levit
Adrian Soviani
Jennifer Howard
Nickolas Jiang

We will kick-off our workshop series tonight at 6:30 in the Mathey Private Dining Room with Darren Hammell '01, CEO and President of Princeton Power Systems. Mr. Hammell won the competition when he was an undergraduate and will be giving advice on how to take the leap from executive summary to business plan. All are welcome to attend.

The Year in Ideas...

In what has quickly become one of my most favorite Sundays of the year, the New York Times Magazine just released its seventh annual edition of "The Year in Ideas."

Far from being an exhaustive library, the list is a fun survey of the year's new products, trends, and ideas that may fundamentally change how we live our lives. And of course, there are copious amounts of entrepreneurial concepts and enterprises...

Here are some of my favorite entrepreneurial ideas:
~Wireless Energy
~Smog-eating Cement
~Telltale Food Wrapping

Finalists will be announced shortly...

The preliminary judges have been sorting through the 21 submissions for the past week and we are hoping to announce the 10 finalists by Tuesday, 5 PM. When finalists are announced, they will also find out which mentor they have been assigned.

Thank you again to everyone who submitted an executive summary, keep checking back for more contest updates, and best of luck to all of the competitors!

Let the Games Begin

21 business plans were submitted before yesterday's deadline and the preliminary judges (Ed Zschau, Bob Monsour, and Greg Olsen) have begun the process of reading and rating every summary.

Sometime next week the finalists will be announced and assigned mentors so that they can begin writing their business plans.

Thank you to everyone who submitted an application and we are looking forward to an exciting competition!

Executive Summaries

Entry Form / Executive Summary Submission : November 27, 2007 by 5 pm

The entry submission provides basic information required for entry. There are three general parts:

1. Concept: description of business idea
2. Market Overview: brief discussion of the intended market, identification of key customers and the ‘value proposition’ to them, and description of barriers to entry and achieving sustainable growth
3. Required Resources: description of the key resources, such as the people, technologies, arrangements with other companies, and funding required

Forms are due November 27, 2007 by 5 pm. to 43 Little Hall or 303 Blair Hall. Emails to the Directors are also accepted. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis and an e-mail will be sent to the designated team member confirming receipt of your entry. Within a week we will be pairing groups mentors.

Awesome Kickoff

Last Friday night, Randy Altschuler' 93 kicked off TigerLaunch '08 with a great talk about his own entrepreneurial ventures and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

Here is the competition timeline for TigerLaunch '08:
~Entry Form/Executive Summary Due - November 27, 2007 – 5pm
~‘How-To’ Strategy Sessions - December, 2007
~Business Plan Checkpoint - January, 25, 2008
~Presentation Workshop - February, 2008
~Final Business Plan Due - February 9, 2005 – 5pm
~Super Saturday - February 23, 2008 – 9am

If you need a contestant kit, you can find it here

EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES ARE DUE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27 (email or hard copy)

Many Thanks to Howard Cox '64 for sponsoring this year's competition, donating $10,000 in prize money

Contestant Kit

Here is the online version of the TigerLaunch '08 Contestant Kit.

Final submissions need to be made as hard copies. Can either be emailed or submitted as hard copies.

Welcome to TigerLaunch

This year's competition kickoff is on Friday, November 9th @ 6PM in the Whig Senate Chamber. The keynote speaker is Mr. Randy Altschuler '93, Co-founder and co-president of Office Tiger, one of the nation's largest outsourcing firms.

After Mr. Altschuler's talk, Selcuk Arkun and Sar Medoff (BPC co-chairs) will explain the competition's format and pass out contestant packets. There will be a reception following the event where potential contestants can mix with local entrepreneurs and private investors who will be involved with the competition.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone at 6 PM on Nov. 9 in the Whig Senate Chamber!
~Selcuk and Sar

Friday, November 9
6 PM
Whig Senate Chamber
Randy Altschuler '93, co-founder & co-president of Office Tiger
Reception after the event