The Princeton Entrepreneurship Club last week kicked off its sixth annual Business Plan Contest, which will differ substantially from previous years.
Officers plan not only to revamp the Business Plan Contest, but also to launch an incubator that would provide startup capital or office space for Princeton student companies.
"We want to make the process more educational," said Jerome Ku '05, president of the Entrepreneurship Club.
The club aims to redesign the workshops, seminars and presentations that precede the competition to better teach students how to develop their ideas into successful business plans, as opposed to just telling them how to write an industrial-grade plan.
This year's workshops will be more instructional, Ku said, with topics like how to make a business work, how to get financing, how to work with a team, and how to make an appealing presentation.
Judging panels will consist not only of venture capitalists, as in previous years, but also other entrepreneurs. In addition to giving students criticism, this year's panels will also offer solutions, Ku said.
The actual contest day, which takes place in February, is judged by panels of venture capitalists and consists of a two-minute "elevator speech" and a thirty-minute "breakout session" of questions and answers.
The contest awards $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000 to first, second and third place respectively.
Past Business Plan Contest winners that have continued on to establish successful companies include TerraCycle in 2003 by Tom Szaky '05 and Princeton Power Systems in 2001 by Erik Limpaecher '01, Darren Hammel '01, Mark Holveck '01 and John Lerch '01.
Ku said that Szaky is currently taking time off from school to run TerraCycle — which utilizes an organic process to turn food waste into valuable organic soils and fertilizers — after winning the grand prize of the 2003 Carrot Capital Competition.
Princeton Power Systems, which designs power saving motors and equipment to make electricity use more efficient, is operating out of its office and laboratory on Princeton's Forrestal Campus.
The incubator project, an idea just started this year, is still in genesis, Ku said.
"Ideally, if a student has an idea we're going to be able to provide funding and/or office space for them," he said.
Ku said that officers of the club were still trying to determine what sort of process should be used to select which students receive incubator resources.
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