Pre-Competition Events (October- January)
Pre-Competition events are held throughout the fall, including mixers and entrepreneurial exchange events, designed to help students, alumni and professionals form teams and exchange ideas. In addition, we hold various Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series workshops to help educate teams about the different challenges and opportunities of starting a business.
Registration & Submission of Executive Summaries (January)
The first step is for teams to register via our Competition platform. For the executive summary round, each entering team must submit a one-page overview of their business, a one-page team description, and two versions of a business model canvas. The deadline for executive summary round submissions is Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 11:00pm. The materials are then judged by area VC's and entrepreneurs in early February, with the winners moving on to the Semi-Final Round and the mentorship stage.
Mentorship (February – April)
Semi-Final teams are invited to participate in a series of workshops and mentor mixers throughout February and March, covering topics relevant to developing, pitching and running startups. They each also have the opportunity to work with a team mentor who has expertise in their industry.
Semi-Final Round (April)
In mid-April, all Semi-Final teams submit their final pitch decks and prototypes to the Competition. On Tuesday, April 24, 2012, teams pitch their ideas to the judges. After a day of presentations, questions and much deliberation, the judges select two finalists from each of the four tracks.
Final Round (April)
The track finalists present to the panel of final round judges at a private event Thursday, April 26, 2012. The plans are evaluated on the attractiveness of the market, quality of the solution, viability of the business model, strength of the team, and potential for future financial success. The Grand Prize winners receive cash prizes and the possibility of venture financing.
The track finalists also pitch their ideas to the audience later that evening at the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum who vote on the People's Choice Award. All semi-finalist teams who were not selected as first place winners in their track are eligible to compete for the Elevator Pitch Award. At the end of the event, the winning teams are announced.