Submission Guidelines for Executive Summaries & Business Plans

Executive Summary Submission Guidelines

Executive Summaries are to be submitted to Kiley Peters at kiley.peters@projects.sdsu.edu in PDF format by Monday November 30, 2009. Three to five pages maximum. One (1) page of summary financials should also be included within the three to five pages.

Business Plan submission guidelines

Twenty (20) copies of the Final Business Plan and twenty (20) separate copies of the Business Plan Executive Summary must be delivered to the Entrepreneurial Management Center by the delivery deadline. An electronic copy of the final plan is also due by the delivery deadline in PDF format and can be emailed to kiley.peters@projects.sdsu.edu. Teams not meeting this deadline may be disqualified.

The delivery deadline is Friday February 19, 2010.

Submissions should be mailed to:

Plans are limited to no more than 16 pages (not including a single cover page or single table of contents page). The 16 pages are limited to a maximum of ten pages of text and 6 pages of appendices. All business plans must be professionally bound (i.e., velo, spiral, tape, etc.). Three-ring binders will not be accepted.

Page format is 1 and half inch line spacing with 1 inch top, bottom, left and right margins. This line spacing and font requirement applies to the textual content of the document and not to titles and descriptions accompanying pictures, graphs, tables or worksheets. All pages must be numbered excluding the cover page. The cover page must include venture name and university affiliation.

Please mark every page confidential and proprietary. Plans and summaries will be returned to the teams after the competition.

Financial data should include a cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet. Include an explanation of the offering to investors indicating how much money is required, how it will be used, and the proposed structure of the deal, i.e., stock, debentures, etc. Also delineate the possible exit strategies.

Appendices should be included only when they support the findings, statements and observations in the plan. Given the number of teams in the Competition, judges may not be able to read all the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (10 pages) must contain all pertinent information in a clear and concise manner.

Judges will use the three-part Venture Challenge™ Judge's Evaluation form. Part I (valued at 40%) is designed to help assess the written business plan focusing on key elements and the effectiveness of the summary financial data. Part II (20%) assesses the poise and professionalism of the presentation. Part III (40%) evaluates the perceived viability of the venture. This quantitative assessment is meant to complement, not replace, the qualitative evaluation of the judges in their determination of winners.

Plans should be emailed to Kiley Peters at kiley.peters@projects.sdsu.edu. Kiley also may be reached at 619.594.8873.

Disclamer

The authors of the business plan will retain all rights to the plan regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition except as stated below. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.

All public sessions of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media which may include radio, television and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions.

The Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University, organizer of Venture Challenge™, may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plan and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at Venture Challenge™. Students retain all proprietary rights. The University may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items is used by The University solely to defray the costs of future Venture Challenge™ competitions. The University has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.