Important Info

Deadlines

Registration	6:00am, Saturday, March 1, 2008	Executive Summary Due
First Round	6:00am, Saturday, March 22, 2008	Business Plan Due
Final Round	8:00am, Saturday, April 19, 2008	Live Presentation

* remember to check YES home page for important announcements

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Registration and Submission

• 6am, Saturday, March 1, 2008 - mandatory final deadline to register your team and submit your Executive Summary
• Register and submit on YESnet (YESnet available at www.yesatyale.org/yesnet, usage instructions available at www.yesatyale.org/y50k.php)
• Guidelines for Executive Summary included in 2007 Y2K Contestant Kit, available at www.yesatyale.org/y2k.php
• Individuals still looking for teams or teams still looking for team members: register and search for others on YESnet (include in your profile any relevant details about your experience and background and what kind of teams or team members you're looking for); alternatively, email joseph.walker@yale.edu to be included in announcements to the Y50K mailing list or email your Division Liaison directly for teambuilding assistance (Division Liaison contact info available at www.yesatyale.org/y50k.php)
  

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Entry Materials

Please click here to download: Contestant Kit
Please click here to download: Entry Agreement
Please click here to download: Prize Claim Form
Please click here to download: YESnet Instructions

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Mailing List

Email joseph.walker@yale.edu to be added to the Y50K mailing list. The 200-person mailing list is emailed once weekly with event details, competition updates, and other important announcements.

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Questions?

Joe Walker, Y2K/Y50K Director, joseph.walker@yale.edu

Mike Ma, For Profit Liaison, m.ma@yale.edu
James Zhang, Social Entrepreneurship Liaison, james.zhang@yale.edu
Mike Zink, Life Sciences Liaison, michael.zink@yale.edu

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Innovation Summit

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008

8:00-8:30am - judges and teams arrive, breakfast, orientation
8:30-10:10am - final round presentations, part 1
10:10-10:20am - 10min judge break
10:20-12:30pm - final round presentations, part 2*
12:30-1:30pm - lunch/judge discussion
1:30-2:30pm - awards ceremony

* 8 final round teams in For-Profit, 8 in Social Entrepreneurship
* presentations = 15 min, judge discussion = 10 min, total per team = 25 min
* part 1 = 4 teams, part 2 = 4 teams
* extra half hour built in for time overruns

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Resources

Please click here to download: Kickoff Flyer
Please click here to download: Kickoff Event Presentation
Please click here to download: Teambuilder Event Flyer
Please click here to download: Business Plan Writing Seminar Flyer
Please click here to download: Business Plan Writing Seminar Presentation, by Maureen Burke

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Competition Info

What is the Y50K Competition?
The Y50K, Yale's annual business plan competition, provides a year-long program of educational, networking, and mentorship opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs, with the primary objective of new venture creation - getting great ideas out of the lab or dorm room and into the real world. Teams write business plans and compete for $50,000 in cash.
 

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How does the judging work?
A panel of judges from the Yale and New Haven venture communities, including experienced entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, legal professionals, and patent expert reads the entries. Some general criteria used by industry, private investors, and venture capitalists in evaluating the attractiveness of new venture opportunities are:

• High growth potential
• Originality of any new technology
• Feasibility
• Market leadership potential
• Quality and breadth of team
• Well defined market opportunity
• Ability to withstand competition
• Written quality of the entry

 

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A cash prize of $50,000 will be split among winning entries as follows:





  

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Who is eligible?
All full-time and part-time Yale students, staff, and faculty at all levels of education and from any department, registered in the current semester of the Competition, are eligible to enter. People that do not meet this requirement may join or form teams, provided that at least one of the principal contestants on the team is a current Yale student, staff, or faculty member. Teams are encouraged to seek the involvement of Yale faculty, alumni, post-docs, researchers, staff, students from other schools, and people from outside the Yale community. Entries must be the original work of entrants and may be entered by an individual or a multi-member team. The size of a team is not restricted, and neither is the number of entries submitted by a team or an individual. Teams that have already secured arrangements for capital from any source must disclose the amounts and sources clearly in their entries. The Judging Panel of the Y50K Competition reserves the right to disqualify any entry that in its judgment violates the letter or the spirit of the competition Guidelines.
 

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What do I include in my entry?
You may submit a executive summary with a maximum of 1200 words describing your business idea. Keep in mind that the judges appreciate brevity and clarity. Entries must be submitted via the Y50K website. Some elements of an executive summary are:

1. Public Summary: How would you describe your idea to the public? Do not disclose any proprietary information or technology.
2. Opportunity Statement: How would you describe the business to a potential investor, team member or customer if you had only a short elevator ride to share together? Use one to three sentences.
3. Market opportunity and Strategy: What existing problem(s) will you solve with your service or product? What are the primary benefits to customers? What is the level of potential sales of your product or service? How will these sales happen? Who will you first customer(s) be?
4. Product and Services: Who will the competitors be? How will you sell your product or service? Where does your revenue come from? Develop a brief concept statement for the product or service that can be shown to potential customers.
5. Market Analysis: Who will the competitors be? How will your service or product compare to those of your competitors in terms of usefulness, cost, styling, ergonomics, time-to-market, strategic alliance, technological innovations, compatibility with related products, etc? How large is your target market and how will you reach the consumer?
6. Financial Plan: Projections on the financial needs and projected revenues of the venture.
7. Management: Include a summary of each team member?s background applicable to the proposed venture. If the full team is not assembled, include a description of the desired background and skills of the team members remaining to be recruited.
8. Entry Agreement: Available on-line (coming soon!). Should be filled out and submitted with your entry.

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Will my entry remain confidential?
Your submissions will remain confidential. All judges and organizers agree verbally to non-disclosure agreements. However, as a required component of the Y50K submission, we ask that you submit a title for your business idea and short (50 words or less) description of your idea – a public summary – that may be published by the organizers in promotional materials or press releases. Do not disclose proprietary information about your idea in the short description.

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Will my intellectual property be protected?
The Yale Entrepreneurial Society (the organizer and sponsor) and the competition judges and other sponsors take all reasonable measures to assure that all contestants retain their rights to their business ideas and intellectual property. The sponsors and judges of the competition include non-Yale organizations that are interested in fostering the entrepreneurial process. Some of these organizations are in the business of working with and investing in the ideas of entrepreneurs. However, co-sponsoring organizations will not have access to the plans and shall make no claim to any of the property or rights. The judges agree verbally to non-disclosure agreements which extend for six months after the public announcement of the winners of the competition. The competition cannot and will not take further responsibility to protect the intellectual property or other rights of the contestants.

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When is the entry due?
The due date for submitting your entry is Saturday, March 22, 2008. No entries submitted after that time will be accepted. Entries must be submitted online. Winners will be announced at the Y50K Awards Ceremony in the beginning of the spring semester.

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