The Battle of the Plans The Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Business Plan Competition, run by the Neeley Entrepreneurship Center at Texas Christian University, focuses on for-profit enterprises owned by current undergraduate students that specifically impact society in meaningful ways. Plans must demonstrate a societal or environmental need, such as contributions to sustainability, innovations in the health and life sciences, innovations in energy, or opportunities for underrepresented groups in business. Business plans submitted for the competition must be for-profit values- centered enterprises. The competition defines a values-centered enterprise as one that assures sustainable prosperity while also supporting the needs of company owners and shareholders, employees and their families, suppliers, customers, communities, and the environment. This is not a competition for nonprofit social enterprises. Values and Ventures is a two-day event. During the first day, teams present in concurrent sessions. The teams are grouped into flights. The first-place team in each flight automatically advances to the finals. The second-place teams compete with each other in a "lightning round." and the top two teams from the lightening round also make the finals. In the second day of competition, each finalist presents again to the judges. Each team gets 12 minutes to present and 10 minutes to respond to questions from the judges. Teams that do not make the finals compete in an elevator pitch competition: One member from each non-finalist team is invited to participate in a 90-second elevator pitch on the second day of the competition. One recent competition fielded teams from 49 universities. The third-place team, winner of $10,000, was Separatec from John Hopkins University. Separatec is developing a patent-pending ultrasonic tip that separates scar tissue in the spinal cord during surgery to minimize side effects and improve recovery. The second-place team, winner of $15,000, was The Rooftop Tea Company from George Washington University. The Rooftop Tea Company seeks to create more "green roofs" by empowering women in underserved communities to transform rooftops into profitable tea gardens. The first place team, winner of $25,000, was InterWallet from Loyola Marymount University. InterWallet provides a low-cost way for lower-income people to pay bills and transfer money. It seeks to disrupt the ATM, bill payment, cash checking, and money transfer markets. InterWallet has developed software that can collect bills for any major service provider through its easy-to-use kiosks. 1. What benefits do entrepreneurs gain by competing in business plan competitions such as the one at Texas Christian University? 2. Work with a team of your classmates to brainstorm ideas for establishing a business plan competition on your campus. How would you locate judges? What criteria would you use to judge the plans? What prizes would you offer the winners, and how would you raise the money to give those prizes? Who would you allow to compete in your competition? 3. Using the ideas you generated in question 2, create a two-page proposal for establishing a business plan competition at your school