Stories
Stories
Show Me The Money — Or Not
Issue Focus: Entrepreneurship
With a total of $150,000 in cash awards and in-kind legal and accounting services up for grabs, the financial upside of participating in the Business Plan Contest can be a considerable boost to new ventures.
Of course, winning the contest is no guarantee of success. Conversely, a number of plans that failed to make the semifinals found success in the marketplace. Contest judges panned Stig Leschly’s (MBA 1997/JD 1998) plan for Exchange.com, an online marketplace for rare and hard-to-find items. Soon after, Leschly sold the business for a reported $200 million in stock.
“In the past fifteen years, roughly 60 percent of venture-backed companies have failed,” says HBS’s Bill Sahlman. “The fact that the judges might end up missing the one big winner or finding the one that turns out to be a loser is completely to be expected.”
The $25,000 prize for the winner of the business venture track is funded through the generosity of Clayton, Dubilier, and Rice, in honor of Martin Dubilier (MBA 1952); Peter Sacerdote (MBA 1964) established the $25,000 and $10,000 prizes for the winner and runner-up in the social venture track; and former contest participants Jon Burgstone and Asif Satchu (both MBA ’99) funded the runner-up prizes in the business venture track.