Don't Just Meet and Greet ... Compete!

Diana Lynn Boyle Win or lose, life scientists can profit from entering business plan competitions, according to participants in the events that are spring rites on many campuses. Some competitors find money to get businesses off the ground, others find investors for the future, some find jobs, and still others find that they are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. Each year at least 25 contests in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom offer an education in commercial survival that no classroom experience can emulate. Life science-based businesses often have an edge over other industries in open competitions, which are more common than science- only contests. The timid need not apply. "I have never entered a business plan contest," says Robert Curtis, founder and CEO of Histometrix, a New Haven, Conn.-based tissue proteomics company spun out of Yale University. "I'm afraid," says Curtis, who has judged Massachusetts Institute of Technology's entrepreneurship contest (the MIT $50K), for three years. Patterned after the venture capital fairs where big investors shop for new companies to back--in the days when VCs were investing in new firms--the competitions are seeing more action than ever, now that the struggle for startup cash has become more intense. Prize money is serious, in the range of $40,000 to $50,000, or $60,000 (US) in some contests. Perhaps even more important, however, are the prize sources. Sponsors include big pharmaceutical companies that may be in the market for new technology. Investment banker G. Steven Burrill has added his name to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's technology business plan competition. The contests give fledgling entrepreneurs intense attention from heavy players, people with cash and time to invest. "That looks pretty good now when money is so hard to come by," says Richard Cosier, director of Purdue University's Entrepreneurship Center and dean of the management school. This past April, Purdue's inaugural life sciences business plan competition handed out $120,000 in cash, including a $50,000 first prize. WIN BY TRASHING RECYCLED BUSINESS TERMS It is not fair, it is not scientific, but it is true that using last year's fad phrase can kill this year's business plan. Here, from the experts, is what NOT to say when pitching your business proposal: "A few years ago, the word that set my teeth on edge was 'globalization.' Then there's 'paradigm shift' and 'sea change.' I actually used those myself until it dawned on me I sounded like an idiot." --Robert Curtis, Connecticut entrepreneur and business plan judge "'Conservative.' Everyone says it. Like, 'We conservatively estimate our market at $500 billion,'" --Adam Brady-Myerov, the 2000 MIT $50K winner, now vice president of sales for Genigma "'Revolutionary' is out ... [instead say,] 'We are three times more efficacious than X' as opposed to 'We are better than X.' ... Avoid berating the competition. If you're saying negative things, the negative effect comes back on you." --Onne Ganel of MicroMRI, a serial contestant and three-time winner Recruiters also trawl the competitions looking for top-tier talent, says Suresh Kotha, director of the University of Washington's Center for Technology Entrepreneurship, which has spawned its share of winners. "This is an opportunity for scientists to differentiate themselves by showing they understand how research gets commercialized," he says. "Recruiters look for people who have honed their skills in realistic settings." WINNING RECIPES Successful competitors generally team scientists and business people, says Fiona Reid, deputy director of Oxford University's Science Enterprise Centre, which will announce a £10,000 first-prize winner on June 24. "Scientists are (rightly) engaged very much with the product," Reid writes in an E-mail. "The business has a different take on the 'value' of the product." Iris AO, a Berkeley, Calif.-based optics company, so successfully combines its research and business talents that scientists on the team present the business case for its advanced optics system, while Michael Campbell, the University of California, Berkeley, MBA who leads the business strategy, presents the science. The role exchange helps the team stress the scientific advantages of the business strategy and the business advantages of the scientific approach. In the United Kingdom, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council have hosted two successful rounds of competition. The current round includes seven UK research councils and the Arts and Humanities Research Board as well. "We thought there would be a benefit from the interaction of people in different areas of research," explains competition manager Jane Nicholson. "We in the research councils are being encouraged to work together, and we are encouraging people in the research base to do the same." Research Councils UK will announce winners in February 2004. The spring of 2003 saw a rash of life-sciences victors in US open contests, which attests to the vigor of the breed against other disciplines. Iris AO won the $50,000 grand prize at Purdue University this year; the company also placed at the University of California's Berkeley Business Plan Competition, and the MBA Jungle Business Plan Challenge, two contests that take all comers. The $100,000 top prize at the 19th annual Moot Corp Competition this year was awarded for a home test for cervical cancer, called Private Concepts. Life scientists bested wide-open fields in three of the last five years at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business Plan Competition. In four of the last five years, life sciences companies took the grand prize at the MIT $50K. Last year, only about 10% of entrants in the Oxford University contest were life science ideas, yet three of seven finalist spots had roots in the life sciences. Serious competitors keep their return on investment high by taking the same business plan to multiple contests. Two hundred hours went into building MicroMRI's business plan, a multiple winner that won the Wharton Business Plan Competition in 2002. Another 30 hours refurbishes the plan prior to each successive competition. Weeks of work boil down in competition to a few magic moments in which contestants pitch their ideas in a high-pressure approximation of real-world business conditions. Wake Forest University's Elevator Competition requires that the contestant get into a real elevator with an actual venture capitalist; the entrepreneur gets exactly two minutes to sell the VC-judge on the worth of a business idea. That kind of real-world pressure makes participating worthwhile, competitors relate. "When I lost my first business-plan competition, it was because I failed to establish a rapport with the judges," says Onne Ganel, MicroMRI's business chief. Since then he has led the company tosecond place in the elevator contest. "I realized that in the real world it wasn't enough to have great science and a good plan. I had to get these guys to like me." Peg Brickley (pegbrickley@hotmail.com) is a freelance writer in Philadelphia. A COMPETITION SAMPLER For details on the next round of competition, check the Web sites of the major contests, which also have tools to help the planning process. Many contest sponsors offer resources such as online forums to help connect scientists with partners in search of a winning team. African American Student Union at the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial Ventures Competition wasat.hbs.edu/aasu/Conference/competition.html Imperial College London £25,000 Entrepreneurship Challenge www.ec.ms.ic.ac.uk MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition 50k.mit.edu function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

Don't Just Meet and Greet ... Compete!

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