To register for the HBSAB business plan competition, please do the following:

• By 10pm on 2/20/10 EST please email a copy of your entry to bplans@hbsab.org and cc rfry@mba1999.hbs.edu (Renee Fry, Vice President, Harvard Business School Club of Boston).  Please note this deadline has been extended from 2/15 due to the public holiday.
• Please put a copy of your plan by 2/20/20 in the mail to:
  • Arlene McNulty
  • Harvard Business School Club of Boston
  • Re: HBSAB Business Plan Competition
  • 5 Wilson Avenue
  • Belmont MA 02478
• If you have questions, please call Renee Fry at 617 216 3411.
• Finalists judging will be defined by meeting the criteria below.
• All finalists will be notified by 2/28/10 by email or telephone.  
• Finalist names, company names, and a short description may be posted to the HBSAB website.  If you are uncomfortable with this, you should not submit a plan.  

Remember, you must meet the following qualifications and should submit the following:

Eligibility: Teams must meet the following requirements:

Each team must have at least one (1) HBS alumnus/a. The HBS alumnus/a needs to be a substantive member of the founding team, with a senior management and operating position and participation in the company's equity pool in a manner consistent with that role and position. At least one (1) of the HBS alumni must be among the group (of a maximum of two (2) team members) who appears in Boston and presents at the NVC Finals in April. 

• Participating teams may not have raised/utilized more than $250,000 in total debt and equity capital, and must have less than $250,000 in revenues. It is not necessary that the teams actually be seeking funding. I.e., they may already have raised the small amount (less than $250,000) of capital they need to reach an initial milestone, or they may have a very cash flow positive business model that essentially requires no outside capital.

Submissions: In general, written business plans are preferable to "PowerPoint" style plans because the reader can more fully grasp the logic and substance of a plan. Slide decks generally rely on this to be filled in by the presenter, but the presenter may not be there during the initial view of the plans by the judges. That having been said, we do recognize the reality that many businesses develop only a "PowerPoint" style plan, and those plans are acceptable submissions. However, in the instances when a "PowerPoint" style plan is submitted, we also require a 2-5 page executive summary of the business plan.Either a "PowerPoint" or a prose style plan should meet the following guidelines: no more than 35 pages of either a prose plan or slide deck plus executive summary. Also, the material should clearly articulate: 

• the product or service; 
• the market need/pain it is designed to address; 
• the team, their background, skills and experience, and their current level of effort/commitment to the venture; 
• the target customer and market, competitive landscape, how that customer will be reached, and the potential of the opportunity, including the size and growth of that market; 
• the technology—if any—on which the underlying product or service is based; and, if it based on a technology, the status of its development and a clear picture of the IP landscape and the protection/defensibility the team believes it will have; 
• the competitive advantage and defensibility of the business; and 
• the financial potential of the business, including: projected income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements for at least 3 years—preferably on a quarterly basis—in order to present a clear picture of the capital needs of the business, the anticipated timing of these capital requirements, a notion of when the business will achieve cash break-even. In addition, the financial plan in conjunction with the narrative should provide a picture of what will be achieved with each tranche of capital, in terms of risks reduced and business objectives achieved.

All finalists will be notified by 2/28/10 by email or by telephone.