Hungry Yet Humble

This Thursday, I’m giving the keynote talk at the MIT 100k Semifinals Award show at 7pm in Kirsch Auditorium at the Stata Center at MIT.  If you have nothing else to do at that time, and you have incredible patience for sitting through a boring speech by yours truly, I hope that you can make it.

The MIT 100k business plan competition has special significance for me (actually it was the 50K at that time, back in 2005), because it was the first showcase for the original business plan for Visible Measures.  I wrote the original business plan with a classmate from business school (a great guy who is now at Bain).  I remember talking over the idea with friends (yes, I believe in getting feedback rather than being too secretive among friends), and a lot of them thought that we didn’t have much of a shot in the business plan competition because most of the winning companies tended to be very heavy-technology, high IP ideas in areas such as medical devices, cleantech, or biotechnology (defensibility through potential patents etc).  

The question many people have is "Are these business plan competitions worth it?"  Or is it a waste of time to enter?

In my opinion, any chance you have to use a "forcing function" like a contest-entry deadline or a big pitch to an investor to bring together your thoughts on your business idea is great.  I wouldn't say that you need to take the time to write a full business plan - in fact, I generally recommend against doing a full business plan as nimbleness and iteration is the name of the game.  But getting your vision organized is critical.

Additionally, a great aspect of business plan competitions is that it helps you get various team members together to see how you work together under the pressure of deadlines.  And on top of the experience, you get often useful feedback from judges about your plan, and often you can squeeze free or discounted services from sponsors (such as law firms).  Scrappy is good!

So how did it go for us?  We ended up being one of a handful of “internet/software” companies to make the semi-finals.  And though that may not sound like much, it was part of the validation that I took heart in as I was trying to “build the onion” and gain confidence in the concept.  I remember how excited I was to hear the “Visible Measures” name called as a SemiFinalist.  I literally had no idea what to say (winners were called down to do a quick elevator pitch for your idea).  After I spoke, I texted my friends, I called my parents.  I was excited.  Now, big entrepreneur guys may never have to go through the “building the onion” phase.  I have friends who have raised millions of dollars with not much more than a powerpoint deck and their reputations.  But for most of us, these validation points can help us gain confidence to go for it.

I hope that at this awards show, I can talk VERY briefly about our story and our background and maybe provide some color as to what we had to go through.  If some folks from the audience can learn a bit from our backstory and can go on to turn their ideas into companies then I will be so incredibly happy for them. 

So in conclusion, I think that events like business plan competitions are incredibly helpful for the pressure, teamwork, and feedback and I think there is very little downside to entering them.  Don't expect to win though!  Low expectations = lower chance of disappointment :)

MIT really provided me with a framework and a supportive environment to try to succeed.  I hope to pass along some encouragement to those trying to go for it now.