This past Wednesday, New York University’s Stern School of Business launched its annual $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge at the official Kick-Off celebration. The competition is open to all NYU students, researchers, alumni, and faculty regardless of their previous business background or startup experience. The challenge consists of three competitions: a New Venture Competition encouraging students to take their ideas from concept to market, a Social Venture Competition for businesses that find innovative ways to tackle social problems, and a Technology Venture Competition to accelerate existing early stage businesses and encourage the creation of new businesses based on NYU technologies.
As its name suggests, the prize pool for the challenge totals $200,000. The New Venture and Technology Venture competitions award a total of $75,000 each in cash prizes, while the Social Venture competition awards a total of $50,000.
Over the course of the eight month competition, competing teams receive individualized coaching from executives, investors, and seasoned entrepreneurs. The competitors also receive training assistance, with lessons in how to figure out which product is the right product for your market, build a solid business model, assemble a team of founders, pitch to investors, and create a solid financial plan.
Previous winners of Stern’s entrepreneurship challenge have achieved some success in the business world. Madecasse, the 2007-2008 Social Venture Competition winner, was named one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies by FastCompany for starting a company that manufactures chocolate in Madagascar. The 2008-2009 New Venture Competition winner Butter Beans, Inc. was featured in Crain’s New York Business in a story about entrepreneurs using awards to their company’s advantage.
