Business plan competition
Business plan competitions are tools for promoting entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship. The support - regardless of whether it is financial or factual - includes both natural and legal persons as well as teams consisting of a large number of such persons (so-called competition participants) who are setting up a company (so-called entrepreneurs ), starting a business succession or already have innovative business ideas want to implement existing companies.
In contrast to mere business plan initiatives, the participants in business plan competitions compete against each other with their business concepts and concepts. The ultimate goal of the competitions is to reward the best-rated business plans by an independent jury.
A business plan rated as promising by the jury will help limit the potential entrepreneur's economic risk and facilitate access to lenders and equity resources.
Business plan competitions can be differentiated according to local or factual orientations. In terms of location, national and regional competitions are to be distinguished; factually, a distinction can be made between industries (industry-wide, multimedia , microtechnology , life sciences, etc.).
history
Business plan competitions according to today's understanding go back to an idea developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1980s . They have their origins in the "MIT $ 100K Entrepreneurship Competition" launched in the USA in 1990, a business plan competition sponsored by MIT. Through close cooperation with universities, business communities and investors, it was possible to promote the entrepreneurial spirit by founding innovative companies or by mobilizing economic growth potential.
In 1995, Sven Ripsas, the then managing director of the Berlin Start-Up Institute (EIB) and today's professor at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, and with the help of Günter Faltin (Free University of Berlin) launched the first business plan competition - namely the business plan -Competition Berlin-Brandenburg - launched. In the same year the Munich Business Plan Competition (MBPW) started.
In 1996 the management consultancy McKinsey & Company , Inc. brought the idea of the business plan competition to Germany. She developed the business plan competition Berlin-Brandenburg , the Munich business plan competition , the Rhenish NUK business plan competition in 1997 as a founding member of the NUK and the business plan competition Northern Bavaria based on the model at MIT in which still predominantly today used form of three-stage competition. McKinsey & Company was also a co-initiator of the Science4Life Venture Cup in 1998 .
Forms / participation
A distinction is made between pure business plan competitions and start-up competitions in which the business plan "only" makes up part of the competition.
In pure business plan competitions, the individual phases of business plan creation are run through: brainstorming, rough concept and finished business plan. As a result, many organizers divide their competitions into two or three levels in order to map the individual phases.
In principle, every founder can take part in a business plan competition, even up to a few years after the establishment. However, some competitions exclude the winners of other business plan competitions from entering.
Founder and business plan competitions in Germany
In 2015, 2.9 million euros in prize money was distributed to founders and start-up companies in 145 founder and business plan competitions in Germany (2014: 2.6 million euros, based on 124 competitions). There is also money for material prizes and coaching measures. In competitions, some of which had a multi-level structure, 944 awards were given to 810 different start-ups. 62% of the competitions had a regional focus; 38% called out throughout Germany. Bavaria (15), North Rhine-Westphalia (13) and Lower Saxony (10) awarded the most regional tenders. Baden-Württemberg (286,250 euros) and Bavaria (209,000 euros) received the highest total prize money . According to a study by Für-Gründer.de, over 170 start-up competitions are pending for 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ McKinsey and NUK ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Study by Für-Gründer.de
