Business Plan Competitions Don’t Reward Business

I recently judged a business plan competition at Skidmore College and it was a fantastic experience.  The college and organizers did a fantastic job putting it together and making it all happen.  Here is a recap video that has been posted to YouTube.

I got back to the office yesterday and was catching up with Taylor about the competition and we got talking about the overall topic of business plan competitions.  While business plan competitions are fun and exciting, they actually do not reward business; they focus purely on the idea of a particular business.

One of the pieces of advice I always give out is that a mediocre idea executed great is better than a fantastic idea that’s poorly executed.  Execution is the key term.  Business plan competitions don’t reward execution, they just reward ideation and that’s a dime a dozen.

Something to think about.

Tagged as , , , , + Categorized as Startup & Venture Capital
  • Dan Forbush

    Well said!

    Darren, all of us at Skidmore appreciate your joining us for this. Great to finally meet you! 

  • Andrew Eisner

    Nice post Darren.  I just submitted a biz plan to a competition that disclosed scoring mechanism, and it seems to have a bias (not a strong bias, but it's definitely there) towards "can this team execute this plan?". Since we've got customers and strong inbound interest, that should work in our favor!

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