Official Rules and Submission Requirements
(Based on official rules of the Moot Corp Competition)

The Intent of the Competition

The Concept2Venture® (C2V®) business plan competition aims to stimulate and nourish the Entrepreneurial Spirit in UIC students campus wide. In particular, C2V® seeks to encourage entrepreneurially oriented students to develop and grow new ventures based either on their own ideas and technologies or those developed by others, including faculty members and alumni. The competition also aims to provide participating students a forum where they can develop skills in pitching ventures to investors and receive constructive feedback, thereby increasing the probability of successfully launching ventures now and in the future. Finally, C2V® will provide the "best" of these ventures with resources to assist the "winning" student team in pusuing the launch of its venture.

To provide a relatively level "playing field" for student teams, each participating team must satisfy the following set of rules. The C2V® Director and judges reserve the right to disqualify any team that violates the rules, regulations or the spirit of the competition.

Venture and Team Eligibility Rules

Student Involvement. The competition is for student created, managed, and owned ventures. In other words, students must (1) have played a major role in conceiving the venture, (2) have key management roles in the venture, and (3) own significant equity in the venture. In general, a member of the student team should be CEO (Chief Executive Officer), COO (Chief Operating Officer), or President of the venture, or members of the student team should occupy 50% or more of the functional area management positions that report directly to the CEO, COO, or President. Members of the student team should also own 50% or more of the equity allocated to the management team and key advisors. An equity position of less than 50% of the equity allocated to the management team and key advisers, and/or less than 20% of the total equity of the venture will be suspect and require the students to show evidence that they were a major cause in the venture creation. One objective of this rule is to exclude ventures formed and managed by non-students who have given token equity to students for writing their business plan.

Team Composition. Teams will compete in two divisions at C2V®: graduate and undergraduate. Mixed teams of undergraduates and graduates are allowed, but if even one student on the team is a graduate student, that team must compete in the graduate division and that graduate student must be a member of the venture's startup management team. Undergraduates in a mixed team may participate fully. All UIC students, not just CBA students, are eligible to participate in the competition. This includes executive MBAs. Non-students may be members of the venture's management team and may participate in planning the venture. However, only students may participate in the competition. In other words, only students may present the plan and answer questions from the competition judges. The maximum number of students on a competition team is five (5), although there is no restriction on the total size of the venture's founding team. Each C2V® participant is allowed to compete on only one team.

Student Enrollment. The competition is for students enrolled in the current academic year. Students who graduated in the preceding academic year are not eligible to participate. However, an exception will be made for students who graduated during the preceding summer.

Nature of Ventures. The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations. Licensing technologies from universities or research labs is not excluded and is encouraged assuming they have not been commercialized previously. All ventures must be seeking outside equity capital.

Prior Activity. Ventures with revenues in prior academic years are excluded. Ventures that have raised equity capital from sources other than the members of the student team before the current academic year are excluded. Ventures that have legally set up a venture identity or have undertaken any other formal startup activities prior to the current academic year are excluded. However, both student and other team members may have worked on an idea or new technology in previous academic years or in the case of the student team members even prior to entering UIC, provided that their venture had no revenues and raised no outside equity capital, and/or did not undertake any other formal startup activities prior to the current academic year.

University Sponsored. It is highly recommended that the business plan be prepared under faculty supervision. Ideally, the business plan will be prepared for credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study. The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team. All participating teams are strongly encouraged to find a faculty or other university advisor.

Concept2Venture® Competition Submission Requirements

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Guidelines

The authors of the business plan will retain all rights to the plan regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition except as stated below. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.

All public sessions of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media, which may include radio, television and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions.

The Liautaud Graduate School of Business at UIC, the organizer of the Concept2Venture® competition, may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plan and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at C2V®. Students retain all proprietary rights. The organizers of C2V® may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium they may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items are used solely to defray the costs of future C2V® Competitions. Concept2Venture® has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.

Executive Summary Guidelines

An electronic copy of your Executive Summary is due no later than 5:00 pm Oct. 27, 2006. The electronic copy can be sent as an e-mail attachment to the C2V Team.

When you register for Concept2Venture®, please include all of the below information in your venture executive summary in ONE document (5 page limit including cover page and appendices) beginning with:

Cover Page

• Company Name
• All Team member names
• College Affiliations
  

Summary must include/address the following

• Brief description of company, explaining the concept clearly and persuasively.
• Opportunity or Problem in the market you wish to exploit.
• How does your product/service address the problem or opportunity?
• Who cares, and why do/should they care? How will they benefit from your product/service?
• Who are your current and potential competitors, and what is your company's competitive advantage?
• Target market(s) demographics and size (# & $).
• Marketing strategy to reach target market(s) and projected % penetration: years 1-5.
• Business Model (supply/production/distribution strategy, pricing, projected revenue streams, and margins).
• Maximum of one-page summary (appendix) of projected financials (3-years) CF, P & L, Balance Sheet; time to Break Even.
• Management team and relevant experience. Gaps and plans to fill them.
• Amount of money needed from investors, and for what purpose(s).
• Current State of Firm (e.g. product development stage, patents, contracts, current sales, profit level, equity/debt raised so far, etc.)
• Development timeline, and key milestones.
• Indicate equity ownership of each team member, current annual revenue (when first revenue was achieved), and total equity (founders as well as professional investors) raised along with date raised.
  

Business Plan Guidelines

Eleven (11) copies of the final plan are due at UIC in room 2223 of University Hall before noon on Monday December 11, 2006. Teams not meeting this deadline may be disqualified. For ease in handling, all copies of business plans should be professionally bound. Three-ring binders are not acceptable. Five (5) copies will be distributed to the Semi-final Round judges prior to the competition. Five (5) copies will be distributed to the Final Round judges should your team move forward into the Final Round of the Competition. Plans will be returned to the teams after the Competition with judges' comments included. One copy will be retained by the UIC C2V® Program.

An electronic copy of the business plan is also due by the same deadline. The electronic copy can be sent as an e-mail attachment to the C2V Team.

Plans must be limited to 20 pages (typed and double-spaced, #12 font, and 1-1-1-1 margins) of text, including executive summary and summary financial data. Detailed spreadsheets and appropriate appendices may follow the text portion of the plan but will be limited to 10 pages. In total, the plan should be no longer than 30 pages.

Financial data should include a 5-year pro-forma cash flow statement (monthly for Year 1, quarterly for Years 2-3, annual for Years 4-5), income statement (quarterly for Years 1-3, annual for Years 4-5), and balance sheet (annual). Include an explanation of the offering to investors indicating how much money is required, how it will be used, and the proposed structure of the deal, i.e., stock, debentures, etc. The team is not required to reveal its desired deal, although the judges may ask questions about it. Also, delineate the possible exit strategies for investors.

Appendices should be included only when they support the findings, statements and observations in the plan. Because of the number of teams in the Competition, judges may not be able to read all the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (20 pages) must contain all pertinent information in a clear and concise manner.

Judges will use the three-part C2V® Judge's Evaluation form. Part I (valued at 40%) is designed to help assess the written business plan focusing on key elements and the effectiveness of the summary financial data. Part II (20%) assesses the poise and professionalism of the presentation. Part III (40%) evaluates the perceived viability of the venture. This quantitative assessment is meant to complement, not replace, the qualitative evaluation of the judges in their determination of winners. Judging panels will be recruited from the business community and ideally will include 5 members (1 successful entrepreneur, 2 investors, 1 finance manager or accountant, 1 attorney).

Plans should be dropped off in room 2223 of University Hall by noon on December 11, 2006.

Presentation Guidelines

In the Semi-final Round, each team will be given 15 minutes to present its business plan followed by a 20-minute question and answer session between the presenting team and the judges. THESE TIME LIMITS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED. The Final Round may have a different time allotment and format.

Each member of the team must participate in the formal presentation of the plan.

Teams may not observe other teams' question and answer sessions in their track until after they have presented their own plan. A team, once it has finished its presentation, may observe both the presentation and Q&A session of the teams that follow it.

Equipment: Each presentation room will be set up with a laptop computer, LCD projector and screen to enable PowerPoint presentations.

"Elevator Pitch" Guidelines

One member of each team will give a 2-minute pitch of the team's concept to a panel of judges on the day of the C2V® competition.

Other members of the team must be available for "moral support" and to help answer questions after the elevator pitch. However, only one team member can present.