Hospitality Business Plan Competition rules & guidelines

1. Teams consisting of no more than five full-time undergraduate and/or graduate students are eligible, with at least one of the members of each team must be a current Nolan Student.
2. Students must be in good academic standing (i.e., GPA not less than 2.0).
3. Students may be members of only one team.
4. All team members must be present for the final presentations unless excused by the Executive Director on the basis of an emergency.
5. Teams are encouraged to seek advice and counsel from successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and experts, but teams must present only their own work product.
6. The Cornell University Honor Code applies to all aspects of the Competition.
7. Non-students may be members of the venture’s management team and may participate in planning the venture. However, they may not be involved in the writing of the plan, should not represent a majority of the management team, and cannot be speakers at the final presentation.

1. The objective of the Business Plan Competition is to provide a meaningful learning experience and start-up opportunity for students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities at some point in their lives. Most ideas are for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. Thus, 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 are generally excluded.  Licensing technologies from universities or research labs are allowed.
2. Ideas must be drawn from the hospitality sector. For the purpose of this competition, “hospitality” is broadly construed and includes businesses providing support services to the hospitality industry (e.g., businesses such as Micros Systems that provide software and hardware to restaurant and lodging businesses). It is critical that teams clearly state the relationship between their business and the hospitality industry their pitch video.
3. Business ideas may be for both for-profit and non-profit ventures.

1. Each member of the team must register and consent to the rules and requirements listed herein. If consent is not received from each member, then the team is prohibited from proceeding to the next stage of the competition. Consent is required prior to the pitch video submission and prior to [the semi-finals].
2. All author(s) of the pitch video and the full business plan must agree that the submissions are their original work. The author(s) will retain all rights to the pitch and full business plan at all times prior to, and following, the competition.
3. Once registered, team members may not withdraw from their team. Withdrawal of a team member will result in non-compliance with the competition rules and elimination from the competition. Team member withdrawals will only be permitted by the permission of the Executive Director and only after the withdrawing team member satisfactorily provides evidence of an emergency necessitating such withdrawal.
4. By participating in the competition, each student grants the Pillsbury Institute and its agents and assigns the right to post the pitch video and/or the final business plan on a password protected website in order for reviewers, judges and administrators to access the items, post comments, and assign numerical scores to the submitted items.
5. Finalists are required to sign a waiver allowing the Pillsbury Institute to electronically record their final presentation. All finalist author(s) will be asked to sign an audio/video release form allowing Cornell University to use the final presentation recording and materials internally for faculty, staff, students, and the Pillsbury Institute. In addition, final presentation recordings may be posted on any Cornell University owned or controlled, website for public consumption.
6. Finalists are required to sign a money allocation agreement prior to the Final Presentation. In this agreement, finalists must indicate whether their company will be competing (prize money will go directly to the company) or if they will be competing as individuals. If competing as individuals, finalists must indicate how any prize money will be allocated amongst team members. This agreement is meant to 1) allow companies to be the official competitors in the competitions and 2) prevent any possible disagreements regarding division of money amongst team members after the competition winners are announced.
7. Non-confidentiality: Some aspects 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 sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media, which may include radio, television, social media and the internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered public information. Participants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions.  We are unable to ask judges, reviewers, staff, or the audience to sign non-disclosure statements or otherwise maintain the confidentiality of any information presented. However, the Pillsbury Institute will take reasonable efforts to limit distribution of business plans presented at the competition, but we cannot guarantee that third parties will not obtain access to the business plan. The final presentation is open to the public and is electronically recorded. Attendance by media personnel is expected and final presentations will be posted on university-controlled websites for public consumption. Copyrights & Permissions: If a team uses copyrighted materials and/or images from a third-party in their presentation or business plan, they must obtain permission and authorization in advance from the owners to use this material.

Your pitch video link should be submitted to the BPC website hosted by Reviewr by date and time described in the section” Important Dates and Deadlines”. You will be required to copy and paste the video recording link into Reviewr for the faculty chairs, executive director and judges to view. You may use YouTube as the recording platform. The video should be named according to the following format: Pitch_TeamName.

Up to 10 teams will be selected to compete as semi-finalists and submit full business plans based on the quality of the pitch. Teams will be notified of whether they are invited to advance in the competition by the date in the section” Important Dates and Deadlines”.

Guidelines: Pitch videos must be playable from YouTube and limited to a 3-minute presentation. You do not need to use all 3 minutes for the video. A successful pitch is brief and to the point, covering the five points below. All team members must be present in the video; however, it is up to the team on who participates in delivering the pitch. You may choose to have all members contribute to the presentation, or you may choose to only have one or a few members present. Use your best judgment regarding the best way to present your pitch.

In your pitch, we expect you to include a description of the following:

1. The market opportunity being pursued or the problem or issue that you propose to solve.
2. The benefits of your product, service or proposed solution. This should include a description of your expected Customer, and why they motivated to buy from your company.
3. The key features of your product, service, or proposed solution.
4. The resources and capabilities required to implement your proposed solution or to develop your proposed product or service.
5. Management team and advisors including their relevant experience and how or why their expertise/experience will enable you to succeed.
6. If not immediately obvious, a clear explanation as to why this is a hospitality business.

Up to 10 teams will be invited to submit full business plans to the BPC website hosted by Reviewr. The electronic copy should be named according to the following format: FBP_TeamName.pdf. You may be asked to print additional copies of the full plan. Any team that does not submit their full written business plan by this date will be disqualified.

Up to five teams will be selected to compete as finalists and compete in the final presentations based on the quality of the full business plan.

General Guidelines: Written business plans are limited to 15 pages of text (typed, single- spaced, minimum 12-point font, and 1” margins on all sides) including the executive summary and summary financial data. Detailed spreadsheets and appropriate appendices should follow the text portion of the plan but will be limited to 10 pages. Plans with fewer than 10 pages of appendices may not use the remaining pages to increase the size of their business plan beyond 15 pages.  In total, the maximum number of pages is 25.

Contents of the Written Business Plan: Your business plan should include (maximum 15 pages):

1. Executive Summary.
2. Product or service description along with its benefits (including current status of development, ie  beta, prototype, etc.).
3. Customer/Market analysis (customer discovery research) (total addressable market size, market segmentation, and target market share).
4. Go to Market Plan.
5. Stage of development of product, service and/or intellectual property.
6. Competitor and Risk Analysis.
7. Management team and Advisors, including relevant experience.
8. Financial projections (statement of cash flow, income statement, & balance sheet).
9. Offering of the company (how much investment you are seeking, uses of funding with key milestones).

Business Plan Financial Data: Financial data should include a pro forma cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet. This data should be included in a summarized fashion in the main section of the business plan. 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.) and possible exit strategies. Detailed financial data and tables should be included in the appendix. The team is not required to reveal the exact desired terms of the deal (i.e., proposed company valuation and percentage of company being offered). However, teams should expect to be asked about these terms and should be prepared to answer these questions in some fashion (if this information is not already provided in the written plan.) It is up to the team to assess the best way to address this question.

Appendices: Should be included only when they support the findings, statements, and observations in the plan. You should not assume that judges will read all the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (15 pages) must contain all pertinent information clearly and concisely. All appendices must fall within the 10-page limit; any pages over this limit will not be posted or provided to the judges.

Changes to Your Business Plan: Once your written business plan is submitted, it will be provided for review by the semi-finalist judges. If your team is selected to participate as a finalist, you can update your business plan (and including financial projections) and submit an updated business plan for review by the Finalist judges. The updated business plan is subject to the same page limitations as the original plan and must be submitted to the Pillsbury Institute Assistant Director, Michelle Mahool at mlc296@cornell.edu by the deadline listed in the section “Important Dates and Deadlines” and will be provided to the judges for the Final Presentations.

Up to five teams will be invited to participate in the final presentations, held during Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC) at the date noted in “Important Dates and Deadlines”. The final presentations will be delivered in front of a live audience to a panel of judges comprised of venture capital and private equity professionals and entrepreneurs. Teams have 10 minutes to present their idea to the judges and audience, followed by a 10 minute question and answer session from the panel of judges. Teams can assume that the judges have read their full business plans. Once a team has finished its presentation, it may observe both the presentation and Q&A session of the remaining teams. Teams may not observe other presentations prior to delivering their own presentations. The order of presentations will be determined randomly.

Detailed scheduling for the final presentations will be provided to the teams later in the competition. However, teams should submit electronic copies of any materials they intend to use in their final presentation (such as a PowerPoint file) to the Pillsbury Institute Assistant Director, Michelle Mahool at mlc296@cornell.edu  by the date listed in “Important Dates and Deadlines”.  The file will be loaded onto a flash drive and auditorium computer for use during the final presentations.

Teams may demonstrate a prototype of their product during the final presentation (including a food sample if that is the product), but they may not provide other materials, such as handouts, etc. to the judges. Teams are not required to use materials in the Final Presentation.

The winner of the competition will be announced during HEC. Results will be posted on social media outlets, university television monitors, email and newsletter distributions to the school community, including alumni and industry partners.

1. Do respond to questions and concerns from teams.
2. Do read and give constructive feedback on each aspect of the pitch video and full business plan.
3. Do suggest other resources or individuals with whom teams can consult.
4. Do identify weaknesses in the business idea that may concern investors and suggest ways of dealing with these concerns.
5. Do listen to and provide critical feedback on teams’ final presentations.
6. Do keep the pitch video and full business plan confidential except if asked to distribute it by the team.

1. Don’t write or re-write any part of the pitch video content or the full business plan yourself. These documents should be the work product of team members only.
2. Don’t substantially steer the development of the business idea or take leadership of the team.
3. Don’t, if advising more than one team, discuss information about or your advisory activities for one team with the other team.
4. Don’t discuss the team’s work with individuals involved in judging the competition.
5. Don’t distribute the pitch video or full business plan to others without permission of the team or use the information or ideas in it for purposes other than acting as an advisor in the competition.