Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Scott Litman

MN Startups: Sharpen Up Those Business Plans! The ‘Minnesota Cup’ Deadline Is May 22

Attention all Minnesota startups and would-be startups: only a short
time remains to enter the statewide business-plan competition known as The Minnesota Cup — applications are due Friday, May 22, 2009.

MNcup-logo

Now in its fifth year, the competition is bigger and better in 2009,
with more prizes and more opportunities to win.  The total amount of
winnings this year was upped to more than $130,000.  And the
competition was expanded to now include six divisions — Clean &
Green, BioSciences, High Tech, Social Entrepreneur, General, and
Student. The first-place winner stands to win as much as $40,000.  But
I submit the money isn’t everything — the publicity and connections the
winners get from this competition are worth far more.

The MN Cup, in more than doubling its prize money, stands in sharp
contrast to a national study that recently reported angel investment
dollars were down 26% in 2008.  Yes, Minnesota entrepreneurs should
take heart — seed funding is actually on the rise in this case!  And
many more founders can now participate in this competition with its
newly added business categories.

Twin Cities Business magazine did a story on the 2008 MN Cup winners

MN Cup 2008 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

MN Cup 2008 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

And here’s their story on the 2007 winners.

MN Cup 2007 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

MN Cup 2007 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

So, What’s in Store for 2009?
How many entrants can we expect this year, and how might this year’s
crop differ?  I asked Scott Litman, one of the MN Cup cofounders.
“Submissions appear to be running at a similar pace to last year.  With
the six divisions being a new thing, the most popular category at this
point is Clean & Green — we’re seeing nearly 30% of all entries in
that division.” 

ScottLitman-FBDoes he expect a rush of entries as the deadline approaches?  “In
our past experience, nearly a third of all submissions occur in the
final 48 hours,” said Litman.

To apply for the competition, just visit www.minnesotacup.org and click on “Enter MN Cup.” Get this: there’s no cost!  Zip, nada!
So, all you bootstrappers out there — why wouldn’t you? The entry
process, in it entirety, is via an online form, which you can save and
come back to at a later time to complete the process.

“While we realize it’s natural to procrastinate, we strongly
encourage entrants to set up their accounts and work on their entries
sooner rather than later,” said Litman. “At the very least, it helps
avoid any last-second technical issues — and, more importantly,
entrants can edit or revise their submissions as much as they like,
right up until the deadline.  So, entering earlier gives them more time
to refine and improve their entry.”

I asked Litman how many entries there were last year, and if he
expected even more this year. “We had 844 total participants last year,
which was by far our biggest year. Our goal is to get a similar level
of participation this year. We believe, based on the current pace of
entries, that this is about where we’ll end up.”

So, when do the judges/reviewers actually start looking at the
submitted applications? Litman: “The deadline is midnight on 5/22, and
we begin reviewing entries on the 23rd.”

Note to Tech Entrepreneurs Especially: Get Busy!
One other comment of Litman’s really struck me:  “I’m not sure why, but
the least well represented category so far for entries is high tech. At
one level, it means we need more of these entries, but it also means
that, for those that enter and write a really good plan, the odds of
moving on to the second round are pretty good.” So, there you go, all
my tech entrepreneur, inventor, and developer friends out there — have
at it!

Here are a couple of the most common questions company founders ask about the MN Cup, with answers from the site’s FAQ page:

What Happens If My Application Gets Past the First Round?
There will be as many as 30 entries that move on to the semi-final
round. At that point, you will have six weeks to put together a much
more detailed and thorough plan. Notification will occur on June 20
with the second-round submission due by July 28. To assist you in your
efforts, you will be provided with access to the James J. Hill premium
membership program (HillSearch), the most powerful business information
resource available to individuals.

How Will My Entry Be Judged?
Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

Innovation: An idea can be for a product or service and
can be an entirely new idea or the evolution of a previous idea. Ideas
that show the greatest innovation will be viewed more favorably.

Viability: Can this idea be commercialized within two
years? Can this idea create or serve a market need? What is the
entrant’s strategy for making the idea into a high-growth business?
Judges will be evaluating ideas on their potential to generate revenue,
profits and employment.

Quality of Presentation: This is a secondary criteria,
but please make sure that all content is well written and clear. As the
competition progresses, quality of presentation will factor in more
substantially.

Any resident of Minnesota can submit his or her breakthrough business idea simply by visiting www.minnesotacup.org
I’ve had the good fortune to work with a winning startup in a prior
year (actually, before the name was changed to the MN Cup), and am
working with an entrepreneur this year to help him with his entry — and
I can attest: you will not be sorry you participated in this
experience.  Whether you win isn’t the most important thing. This is an extremely well run competition, in every way. The process itself will
make you a better entrepreneur, guaranteed. But don’t just take my word
— read this post from a previous winner, HealthSimple’s Doug Powell: Business Competitions — An Ongoing Discussion. And these testimonials from past entrants are also quite telling.

Good luck to all Minnesota Cup entrants!  I look forward to meeting
at least all the semi-finalists at a special event for them this summer
(to be announced).

GetGoMN Gets Goin’ – and I’m In!

A new web site for Minnesota entrepreneurs, investors, and the people who support them was unveiled this week at a press conference hosted by Governor Tim Pawlenty at the Capitol. I was invited, and did manage to get one good photo of the festivites in the very grand and impressive Governor’s Reception Room. [It was an interesting juxtaposition, talking about a new web site in the midst of all the historic surroundings.] I also got to meet the Gov, and I’ll tell you why I was there in a bit.

Govatpodium499w

GetGoMN is a free service and aims to be nothing less than a MySpace for the state’s entrepreneurs and angel investors. It’s been in the planning stages for more than a year and is a unique collaboration of nine of Minnesota’s leading institutions in education, government, and business. I like the goal of GetGo — it’s simply this: “To make Minnesota a better place to conceive, build, launch, and grow new businesses.”

See how the Star-Tribune covered the news: Website Calling Business Angels. Other local media outlets ran items as well, including The Business Journal. And here’s how my friend and fellow MN blogger, Garrick Van Buren, wrote about it at MNteractive.

GetGo is a great new tool that will help Minnesota entrepreneurs, investors, and supporting organizations find and keep track of one another. But it goes beyond just connecting — it provides a way to share and manage all the documents and information relating to those connections (securely!).

The one-liner is this: “GetGo is where Minnesota’s entrepreneurs get connected, get resources, and get going.” Love that!

Now, more about why I was at the press event, and what this has to do with me: I’m very proud to say I’ve been tapped to be GetGo’s “chief evangelist”! [I’ve always wanted to have a title like that — thank you, Guy Kawasaki, for inventing it… 🙂 ] What does it mean? What will I be doing? Well, I’ll be launching a blog at GetGoMN.org, for one thing — where I’ll now do all my Minnesota-related blog posts. [I’ll reserve Tech-Surf-Blog for things of a more general, national, or global interest. Well, maybe an occasional Minnesota item…] I’ll still be doing my consulting, or course, since this is only a part-time gig. But I’m extremely excited about the potential of GetGo, and really look forward to working with the three founders of this great new site: Tom Kieffer, Scott Litman, and Dan Mallin. They’re really the “chiefs”… 🙂 But I very much share their vision for the site, and I look forward now to working even closer with Minnesota entrepreneurs (if that’s possible!)….

I ask all of you for your support, and keep in mind that the site is just out of beta, so there are still kinks to work out, and lots more good things are yet to come. I’m excited, too, that membership at GetGo, after only a few days, is already exceeding expectations. In the last few days, I’ve invited several of you into my first network at GetGo (which is for my consulting company, GT&A Strategic Marketing), and will be happy to get more of you into that as we get started on GetGo. I’ll have a blog there, too! Many networks are being created as we speak. Start one of your own!

It’s official: entrepreneurship in Minnesota just took one great, big step forward.

We Celebrate Entrepreneurs This Week – Hugged One Lately?

You should, because they’re what makes our world go ’round — well, our economy, that’s for sure. I saw a stat this morning in a Flickr post of Steve Jurvetson’s from his talk at Stanford this weekend. More than 70% of college students today will start a company some time in their life. A remarkable stat, but it comes from the Kaufmann Foundation, so it must be true. [I guess I feel sorry for the other 30%.]

Entrepreneurshipweek

Here’s the lowdown on Entrepreneurship Week, which has Kaufmann all over it. [What an amazing organization, and right here in the Midwest, too, just down I-35 a piece in KC.] And here’s where you can see what’s going on in Minnesota relating to this week’s celebration. [Click the arrow under “Activities” to scroll through everything.]

I’m for sure going to catch the Angel Investing Panel on Wednesday afternoon (after all, I now write for The Angel Journal, so, I’d better). And an event on Tuesday afternoon in St.Paul, featuring Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad, should be great.

Then, I’m also planning to drop in on a talk at the Carlson School by Scott Litman over lunchtime on Thursday, which will look at several things relating to Entrepreneurship in Minnesota. No doubt Scott will talk about the new web site for Minnesota entrepreneurs and small businesses being launched on Wednesday: GetGoMN, which I’ve had the pleasure of being involved with a bit. The StarTribune gave that a nice boost this morning, with a piece on the front page of the business section called Website Calling Business Angels.

Hope to see you at some of these events this week!