International Business Model Competition Booklet 2013

Harvard University

Brigham Young University

Stanford University

2013

International Finals First and largest InternaƟonal Business Model CompeƟƟon in the world

2013 IBMC Stats

Participating Teams Participating Schools Prize Money Awarded Participating Countries

1,383 143 $357,000 10

USA, Canada, Chile, Cambodia, England, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh Â

2013 International Business Model Competition

General Competition Information - Schedule

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- Maps

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- Prizes

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Company Descriptions

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Judging (criteria , bios)

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Rules

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History (philosophy, success stories)

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Additional Resources

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IBMC

Table of Contents

International Business Model Competition

Message from the Founder Congratulations and thank you for being involved with the International Business Model Competition. We started the IBMC with a vision that there is a better way to be an entrepreneur, applying principles such as Lean Startup, Customer Development, Design Thinking, and related processes to turn hypotheses into facts before wasting time and resources.

The competition was designed as a tool to tell the world about a better way to be an entrepreneur. To our surprise, in just three short years the competition has created a revolution in the way universities train and reward entrepreneurs, reshaping what a business plan means in its wake.

Thank you for being part of this revolution. We are redefining what it means to be an entrepreneur and an innovator. We are redefining how to teach and reward entrepreneurship. Just like your ventures, we may not be perfect yet, but we will keep testing our hypotheses until we get it right. Our hope is that you emerge from this competition excited to continue developing your businesses. Although I know you are all excited to win, you are all winners today. What will make you a winner in the future will be continuing to test your hypotheses until you have really nailed it—only then would I encourage you to scale your business. I hope that after today you will tell your friends and your universities— let us keep the fires of this entrepreneurial transformation burning bright and lead the way for others who have dreams of solving big problems.

Nathan Furr Founder International Business Model Competition

Joint us in 2014 at BYU

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Competition Schedule

Competition Schedule 2013 International Business Model Competition Friday, May 3, 2013 Networking Brunch | Harvard Innovation Lab Classroom

10:30 AM — 12:00 PM

All team members must attend this event and food will be served. Teams will check-in and be given their name badges and competition information packet. Teams will be welcomed to the competition and introduced to each other. The weekend’s schedule of events will be explained along with the logistics of each judging round. It is recommended to bring some form of a business card as networking will be encouraged.

Semi-Final Judging | Harvard Innovation Lab Conference Rooms

1:00 PM — 5:00 PM

Semi-final judging will take place in four different conference rooms throughout the Innovation Lab. A room and time schedule will be included in the information packet handed out at the Networking Brunch. Judges for this round have been selected from Boston area investment and entrepreneurship professionals. Each conference room has a large TV screen that teams can use to project their presentations. Each team is charged with providing their own laptop and the necessary adapters (at the very least an VGA adapter) to plug into the media resources in the room. Team mentors, advisors, or other team-affiliated individuals are welcome to watch their team’s presentation.

Semi-Final Results Dinner | Harvard Innovation Lab Lobby

6:00 PM — 8:00 PM

All teams are required to attend this dinner which will be attended by some of the final event judges and other VIP’s. The semi-final round results and teams advancing to the final event will be announced.

Saturday, May 3, 2013 Breakfast (On Your Own) | Clover is recommended Booths | Harvard Innovation Lab Classroom

9:00 AM — 10:00 AM

All teams are invited to host a booth prior to the start of the final event. Teams will be able to showcase their company to final event attendees. Booths will be provided with a table, tablecloth and access to power. The following are recommended items to bring:  Business cards  Fliers, posters and banners  Computer (to display visual or digital media assets)  Product prototypes (if applicable)  Anything else that will help facilitate an effective discussion about your company Final Event | Harvard Innovation Lobby

10:00 AM — 12:00 PM

Finalist teams will present to a live audience and panel of judges including Nathan Furr, Alex Osterwalder, Steven Blank, and Thomas Eisenmann (see IBMC website for more details on judges). Finalist teams will be required to submit their presentation to competition organizers before midnight on the evening of Friday, May 3rd. Winners will be announced at the events conclusion.

Post-Finals Networking Event | Harvard Innovation Lab Classroom

12:00 PM — 1:30 PM

All competing teams are invited to attend this event. Many of the competition judges and other VIP’s will be in attendance. Teams hosting a booth are encouraged to continue manning their booths during this event.

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Harvard Innovation Lab - First-Floor Map

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Harvard Innovation Lab

Doubletree Suites Hotel

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International Business Model Competition

Prizes 1st Place

$ 25,000.00

2nd Place

$ 10,000.00

3rd Place

$ 7,500.00

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4 Place th

$ 5,000.00

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5 - 8 Place th

$ 2,000.00

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9 - 28 Place

$ 1,000.00

The IBMC Trophy Do you have what it takes to bring the International Business Model Competition trophy to you school? The IBMC trophy travels each year to the school of the IBMC champion. Currently the trophy resides at Brigham Young University since last year XoomPark, a team from BYU, took first in the competition. The 2013 competition is a new year and a new champion will be crowned. So bring your best to this competition and you may bring back more then just prize money.

The IBMC Champions 2012 XoomPark 2011 Gamegnat

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Brigham Young University American University

Ken Frei Zachay Allaun, Jorge Espinoza

2013 International Business Model Competition

Section Contents Astoria Road

Balance

Bosse Tools

Buzz Lanes

Care Capture

Epsilon Micro Devices

Ever

Fairweather Chef

FiberFix

Giraffe Design

Givifi

LightCloud

Lunch Box

Moringa Plus

Optimed Lab Solutions

Owlet Baby Monitors

Panx Solutions

Purchext

Quickstor

Sensible Baby

Smarty Pants

The Shot Coach

Soletics

Spring Loaded Technology

Tripeese

Vacation Races

The Husband Store Tauros Engineering

IBMC

Company Descriptions

International Business Model Competition

Astoria Road astoriaroad.com

Harvard Business School

Astoria Road is a universal wedding registry that allows couples to add any gift from any store. We earn money by charging guests a 7% fee and sourcing gifts from the cheapest retailer. In the future, we will also earn 5% commissions from retailers. Our LTV per couple is $615. This LTV will rise to $1,000 when we receive retailer commissions Our founding team consists of two married couples that are passionate about creating a registry we wish we have had ourselves when we got married. Our team has a highly diverse and complimentary skill-set, spanning design, engineering, operations, and marketing The wedding industry is expanding. Each year $19 billion are spent on gifts through wedding registries. Registry websites can capture 12% ($2.3 billion) in revenues The two types of existing wedding registries each have major deficiencies. Instore registries have limited capabilities. Universal registries are more flexible but have a bad user experience Astoria Road has six distinguishing features: (1) an intuitive user interface; (2) flexibility to add any gift; (3) social networking capabilities; (4) get inspiration through gift suggestions; (5) a “cash out� option; and (6) an easy check-out process for guests We have launched a fully functioning site with great success and have a clear plan forward. Since our official launch in February, we’ve acquired 214 customers, been featured on a top 3 wedding blog, established partnership with a retail store (Mariposa), and began conversations with Amazon and The Knot (XO Group) about potential partnerships.

Balance Pontifical Catholic University of Chile masbalance.wix.com/balancebienestar Balance is a Chilean start up, formed by young designers interested in using innovative new technologies for wellness products market.

Our first project is Balance, a type of footwear specially designed to protect your feet in the practice of wellness disciplines such as yoga and pilates. Between its attributes, it incorporates copper for its self sanitizing function against fungi and bacteria in a new anti-slip material, and an anatomical arch controlling postural balance. The value proposition is to improve concentration and performance from our users and to bring more people to practice wellness disciplines.

One of our key activities is the investigation of technologies and materials, along with the detection of opportunities, the study of users to improve their quality of life from the design of intelligent products.

We plan for the brand "balance" a steady growth starting from Santiago, continuing coverage throughout Chile, Latin America and the world, to become a brand recognized for its quality and use of new technologies in products designed for the physical, emotional and mental wellness of its customers.

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Company Descriptions

Bosse Tools LLC bossetools.com

Loyola Marymount University

Bosse Tools LLC is a startup company that is changing hardware tools through ergonomics; ultimately creating more efficient shovels, rakes, brooms, and pitchforks - we are transforming the construction, agriculture, and home-improvement industries. Bosse Tools has developed an ergonomically efficient design that utilizes a double handle for its tools - we call this innovation "Handle-It Technology." Our tools maximize muscle usage and diminish strain, ultimately increasing stamina and reducing injury. The problem that exists today is that many individuals finish a day of labor with sore backs, wrists, and arms from twisting and tweaking in unnatural positions. With the use of BosseTools, the user utilizes the strongest muscles in their body - the upper arms, core, and legs - alleviating these issues by returning the body to a more natural position (minimal wrist pronation and decreased back torque). While ordinary tools do get the job done, Bosse Tools provides a noticeable benefit to laborers in any field, turning ordinary tools into ergonomic redesigned tools with increased output. In addition to lost stamina and injury, a problem that exists is lack of quality. Bosse Tools ensures the highest quality of its products by overseeing the manufacturing and assembly process. We are sensitive to the other products on the market and therefore differentiate ourselves through a standard of high quality. Ultimately, Bosse Tools is a groundbreaking company that has revolutionized the tool industry and has potential to generate unbelievable successes in the marketplace.

Buzz Lanes

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Buzz Lanes is a consultation/marketing management service for aspiring artists. Artists will be able to sign up for our services at varying price levels with corresponding levels of service. We will help these artists manage their entire external presence through social media analysis, youtube analysis, and overall internet presence analysis. We will be able to provide analytical information accompanied with general consultation for how they can increase their exposure and better reach fans.

Our value proposition is that through our marketing and social media management experience, we will be able to help artists manage their internet presence in an affordable, accessible, and flexible manner. We will provide easy to understand analytics based off their internet presence and provide consultation to the band for how to improve. We see this business as having large growth aspects because of the increased ability of musicians to not only spread, but make and record their music digitally. Additionally, as our service is affordable and flexible, we will be able to build a large customer base of new and aspiring artists.

Care Capture carecapture.com

University of Central Florida

Care Capture is a software application that senior living communities use to create and send wellness updates to the family members of their residents. Updates can include pictures, videos, text, and a list of activities the resident has participated in.

The senior living industry will grow 60% by 2030 due to the baby boomer generation. Senior communities try to gain every advantage over their competitors to gain market share, Care Capture is an excellent competitive advantage.

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International Business Model Competition

Epsilon Micro Devices epsilonmicrodevices.com

San Diego State University

Epsilon Micro Devices is an innovative technology company dedicated to furthering the field of microfluidics through interdisciplinary work in biology, electronics and mechanical engineering. We strive to enable our colleagues and customers to break through barriers by providing low cost, alternative techniques and equipment. We also provide a platform for the exchange of information and innovative ideas in hopes that it will allow the microfluidic community as a whole to move farther and faster.

Ever

University of Iowa

The Founders of Ever believe dangerous ideas make better stories. Ever is our online interactive reading experience. It is an accessible, beautiful, and engaging way for our readers to directly participate in the story's creation. Readers will explore the worlds created by the stories through role play, discussion, and polls to influence how the story progresses. Creating a dynamic exchange between authors and readers, Ever will change the dynamic of storytelling forever.

Fairweather Chef fairweatherchef.com

Harvard Business School

Fairweather Chef offers fresh, healthy fully-prepped meal kits that are ready to cook. We offer a full meal: the vegetables are chopped, the condiments are measured, and the recipes are quick and simple. Competitors require advance ordering and price points are high due to shipping costs. Our business model is B2B2C. We partner with companies to provide FWC: employees order online and we deliver each afternoon.

This allows for wider distribution, at lower costs, and on-demand service.

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Company Descriptions

FiberFix fiberfix.com

Brigham Young University

Here at FiberFix we manufacture and wholesale a newly developed repair wrap inspired by the casting tape physicians use to repair broken bones. We discovered casting tape could be modified to make an incredibly strong and durable solution for common household and industrial repairs. FiberFix was created to address a universal problem- things break! Sometimes those breaks need to be fixed immediately and often the broken items are difficult or expensive to replace. FiberFix provides the solution, it is easy to apply, cures rapidly, and provides a repair 100x stronger than duct tape

Giraffe Design designbygiraffe.com

Quinnipiac University

Giraffe Design is a reusable packaging design agency. Almost all packaging is thrown out after the customer has reached the product. Giraffe Design develops reusable packaging for brands looking to extend their marketing while adding value to products. Reusable packaging creates valuable customer impressions.

To recycle is to convert waste in to reusable material, our designs are a simple form of recycling. Brands that use reusable packaging will lower the brand carbon footprint.

Licensing protected designs to companies will allow Giraffe to make a percentage of every item sold from major brands. This will allow rapid growth.

Givifi givifi.com

Brigham Young University

Givifi is a social gifting application that helps busy men and women find meaningful, personalized gifts for the people they care about, and purchase them in time for special occasions. It does this by importing the birthdates, interests, and hobbies of the user’s family members and friends from social networking websites, reminding the user of upcoming special occasions, and providing customized gift recommendations for each recipient based on their particular interests.

In order to validate our business model, we've conducted over forty customer development interviews, surveyed 100 strangers, tested a variety of landing pages, and conducted a focus group. Givifi can generate revenue through: direct application sales, sponsored gift recommendations, and referral fees collected from merchants. The Givifi application has been completely redesigned several times based on customer development interview feedback and is currently in the alpha stage. We will begin beta-testing very soon.

Our hope is that Givifi becomes the de-facto gift management application.

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International Business Model Competition

LightCloud

University of Central Florida

LightCloud provides proprietary algorithms and downloadable 3D-laser based imagery (point cloud data) of any civil infrastructure from entire highways, bridges, major arenas, to skyscrapers, and nuclear plants.

These industries will benefit from the exacting standards that our technology enables, and further our market presence. Market research suggests that the market is large enough to attain profitability in the first year.

In addition to a 3D database, LightCloud also offers customized engineering consulting catered specifically to clients’ needs – for example: if a general contractor is awarded a 20 mile highway renovation contract, LightCloud is able to provide surveying data in a record time and at comparable costs to current manual surveying methods – except that LightCloud’s data consists in billions of useful and visually appealing coordinates rather than hard to read 2D architectural drawings .

LightCloud's value proposition is that we avoid business interruption, which leads to litigation all while providing highly useful 3D measurements of the world to facilitate construction, surveying, and insurance.

Lunch Box universitylunchbox.com

Brigham Young University

Lunch Box is a new business that combines great advertising with free food. Through mobile and online channels, Lunch Box provides value to three unique groups. Current college students, school organizations and clubs, and businesses. Lunch Box provides hungry students a free meal, clubs and school groups free advertising, and provides businesses a better and more specific way to target their desired market.

Companies are struggling to reach college students and the solution to their problem is Lunch Box. In an every changing industry, Lunch Box has found a new way to reach students by providing businesses an audience of their desired target market. This personal and more specific approach to advertising will help businesses to increase the effectiveness of their efforts while at the same time, providing hungry college students a free meal.

Starting at BYU, we are developing a model that will allow this app to grow quickly and efficiently on other college campuses. We are building software that will give us an upper hand in the advertising industry. Our target market consists of the top 100 most desirable colleges and is valued at $215 million.

Lunch Box is growing fast and as we are excited to expand our reach across the country.

Moringa Plus The Lao-American College facebook.com/pages/Moringa-Plus/576781592334682 Moringa Plus is an organic tea producer from Vientiane, Laos. Our Business focuses on manufacturing, branding and marketing a range of tea products from the Moringa Tree, which provide various health benefits. Moringa Plus has already produced and tested prototypes in the Vientiane Capital and is now looking for partners to expand sales to neighboring countries and overseas markets in Japan, Europe and the USA, where the health-conscious trend is dominant.

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Company Descriptions

Optimed Lab Solutions

University of Central Florida

Optimed Lab Solutions helps physician run health practices generate revenue from doing their own in house laboratory testing. Our value model is built on offering online tools and services to help:   

EQUIP doctor’s offices via the purchase of appropriate laboratory instrumentation, and a customized financial blue print to help them maximize their test reimbursement from Medicare.

EDUCATE office staff on the operation, maintenance, and service of the purchased equipment.

ASSIST the office as a regulatory liaison, providing remote management and guidance in order to maintain federal regulatory compliance.

Owlet Baby Monitors owletcare.com

Brigham Young University

Owlet Baby Monitors is an innovative baby monitoring company. Our core product is a sock, that alerts parents if their child stops breathing at night. It wirelessly relays vital signs, heart rate and oxygen saturation levels to the parents smart phone. It uses pulse oximetry, a common hospital technology that measures oxygen levels and heart rates through light. The lungs are the last organ to develop and consequently many children have respiratory problems. In addition to respiratory problems, heart problems and common illnesses, SIDS is a major concern for parents. Our monitor gives peace of mind to parents one heart beat at a time.

Panx Solutions panxsolutions.com

Brigham Young University

Panx Solutions provides universal emergency location devices and asset tracking systems using a proprietary GPS technology. The technology does not use typical GPS satellites, instead it uses existing ground based signals of opportunity. Our advantage is the technology works not only outdoors, but indoors and underground where normal GPS does not. This advantage allows Panx devices the opportunity to address a much larger customer base with unfulfilled needs and multiple revenue streams.

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International Business Model Competition

Purchext purchext.com

Dalhousie University

Purchext is a digital wallet that allows patrons (parents, managers ect) to control their dependents spending. Most of the time the person purchasing a good or service is not the person paying. This happens with children and parents, between friends and at work. Such practice of lending your credit card is highly inconvenient and insecure at the same time. To validate our hypotheses we have conducted over 700 customer interviews with our three main customer segments: Parents or patrons, their financial dependents, and merchants. We have also conducted smoke tests and built a low fidelity minimum viable product to confirm demand. We have also interviewed dozens of industry experts to ensure our solution can integrate in the payments sector. When it comes to dependents’ spending, the lack of control over what and how much they spend was clearly identified by our customers as a major problem along with the problem for teens to reach out to their parents every time they have to make a purchase online.

Considering last year 364 billion dollars worth of goods and services were purchased online in North America out of which teens represent 20% of all purchases (e-marketer) making the market size 71 billion dollars of total online transactions.

Going forward many experts believe that mobile payments are widely expected to overtake physical cards in the next five years this represents a massive opportunity to disrupt.

Quickstor quickstor.com

Harvard Business School

Our vision is to create a mobile platform for self storage rental aimed at the $25 billion self storage industry. The product would allow consumers to rent a storage unit directly from their smartphone or tablet including lease execution, payment, and identity verification - and receive an access code to the chosen self storage facility. The traditional process for self storage rental is largely person-to-person and paperintensive. Though current products on the market allow for reservation of self storage units over the phone or at an on-site kiosk, and several technology companies are attempting to enter the mobile market, none has created an entirely off-site, user-friendly, and economical product that can be implemented with ease by the long tail of “mom & pop” self storage facilities that comprise 85% of the industry.

Sensible Baby mysensiblebaby.com

Harvard, Babson

Each year, more than 4 million babies are born in the States, 2 million of which born into the family of new parents. SIDS, as the leading cause of death for infants under 1 year old, is a main source of anxiety and worries for new parents. Currently there are audio/video monitors, pressure pads and motion clips that parents use. However, audio/video monitor require active monitoring during night and interfere with household wireless signals.

The main problem with pressure pads and motion clips are low sensitivity and high false positives, which is a source of anxiety itself.

Sensible Baby wants to help ease those worries by monitoring babies’ sleep safety by offering monitoring products with additional features, lower cost and increased effectiveness. Our product Smart One has a safe-in-every-way transmitter that alerts the parents on their smartphones if baby is in unsafe sleeping position/temperature. We aim to bring peace of mind to new parents through technology and innovation.

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Company Descriptions

Smarty Pants University of California, Santa Barbara www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~smartypants/ Smarty Pants creates interactive media lessons using environmental contexts to provide teachers with an engaging, time-saving, tool that raises academic performance scores and inspires environmental stewardship. Today, our environment faces increasing human caused degradation and crises. Internationally, the United States is the second largest contributor of total carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions per capita. The United States ranks 47th internationally in our quality of science and math education. In order for our nation to begin solving environmental problems and mitigating impacts, we must first understand science and the environment. The classroom is the ideal place for this learning to occur, but there are many barriers teachers today are faced with many pains. Elementary school teachers struggle teaching science because they often do not have science backgrounds. In addition, teachers everywhere are pressed for time and face immense pressure preparing students for standardized tests. Smarty Pantsaims to ease these pains with environmentally focused webisodes, or web episodes, that align with nationwide science standards and use interactivity to keep students engaged. Teaching through environmental contexts has been shown to increase academic achievement across multiple subjects and encourage pro-environmental behavior. Also, an environmental curriculum provides kids with a context that they can see and relate to. The ultimate goal of Smarty Pants is to increase environmental stewardship through awareness and knowledge, and evidence shows that environmental education can help achieve this mission. Finally, students are important change agents for the larger community, influencing peers and adults to become environmental stewards.

The Shot Coach theshotcoach.com

Brigham Young University

The Shot Coach Company is a leading innovator of sports technologies and movement tracking analytics.

Simply put, they create innovative products that help athletes improve their game.

Our team was started in late 2012 with business students Garrett Jestice, Devin Basinger, and Travis Hancock. While working together on a class project, they discovered the pain experienced by many basketball teams, coaches, and players of not being able to automatically and affordably track valuable shooting statistics to help improve performance. After validating this pain in the marketplace through extensive market research and coming up with an idea for a potential solution, they recruited brother engineers, Josh and Mark Bennett, to help make the idea come to life.

Their signature product, The Shot Coach, is the first basketball tracking system that: 1.Automatically tracks a shooter’s makes and misses.

2.Logs where each shot was taken on the floor.

3.Records wrist movement, shot arch, ball velocity, and other valuable shotstatistics.

4.Displays this information, via mobile application, in easy-to-read diagrams and analytics designed to help a player improve his or her performance.

This product is loved by competitive teams, coaches, and players alike. Its superior functionality and affordable price allow it to outperform any improvement enhancement product currently available for school basketball teams and competitive players.

After successfully marketing this product to teams and individuals, they plan to extend their expertise beyond basketball to create similar products for athletes playing different sports.

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International Business Model Competition

Soletics facebook.com/Soletics

Grand Valley State University

Soletics creates athletic outerwear to conquer the elements. Using sustainable green energy, our clothing line is not only sleek and stylish, but eco-friendly. According to our extensive market research, Winter athletes have no problem heating their core. In fact, they tend to sweat quite a bit. The real problem lies in keeping their hands and fingers warm. In response Soletics created its first product: a solar powered jacket that works to cool your core while also heating your extremities. Temperature levels will be controllable via user interface on the forearm of the jacket. We will soon have a full compatible line including snow pants, hats, etc.

Spring Loaded Technology springloadedtechnology.com

Dalhousie University

The Problem. Due to its complex structure and function, the knee is the most commonly injured joint in the human body. In fact, knee injuries and osteoarthritis are the leading causes of life-changing lower-extremity disabilities. However, assisting leg muscle strength can be used to help prevent, rehabilitate, and alleviate the symptoms of common knee injuries and osteoarthritis. Assisting leg muscle strength also offers the opportunity to enhance performance for healthy individuals, such as athletes, manual laborers, and foot soldiers.

Our Solution. At Spring Loaded, we are developing new knee bracing technology that can effectively enhance the strength and power of the leg muscles when used. By increasing leg strength, our technology can be used in a wide range of applications including: mobility assistance, injury prevention, injury rehabilitation, and performance enhancement.

Our proprietary device is the first compact, spring-loaded hinge mechanism that can be retrofit with (or integrated to) existing knee brace technology, and which can assist the leg muscles during knee extension (e.g. the motion that occurs while standing up from a seated position). Our plan is to launch our technology into the alpine sports market initially, then grow into the broader athletics and movement disability markets.

The Husband Store the-husband-store.com

University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

The Husband Store, an extension of The Boyfriend Store, is an online retailer providing gift suggestions for common occasions, such as birthdays and anniversaries, to husbands and boyfriends who are uncertain of what to buy their partners. Girlfriends/wives have the opportunity to offer feedback and/or suggestions, enabling men to choose gifts and eliminating the need for time consuming online or in store search. We are currently expanding our website in order to allow customizable profiles and the ability to pre-purchase gifts in advance of important events.

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Company Descriptions

Tauros Engineering

Harvard Business School

Tauros Engineering was formed in 2013 to commercialize a revolutionary technology for the detection of bridge scour. Across the US, nearly 24% of our nation’s 610,000 registered bridges are deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and, with scour as the leading cause of bridge failure, there is a significant need for our product. There are currently no solutions that have the necessary capabilities to properly detect scour 24/7, accurately, and reliably. The current solutions fail to detect scour on time, and therefore a low cost repair turns into, potentially, a million dollar bridge replacement. Our product will save our customers money while improving public safety.

Tripeese tripeese.com

Harvard, Wharton School, and MIT

Tripeese is an interactive travel website that helps users to easily plan and book trips with their friends at discounted group rates. Today, organizing group trips is an incredibly time consuming and a painful process: group travelers spend endless hours discussing options, visiting dozens of websites, exchanging emails, messages and phone calls and creating spreadsheets to coordinate trips with friends. Organizers feel overwhelmed and other travelers in the group don’t feel like their opinions count. Even when they reach consensus about the itinerary, travelers have to book individually or the organizer has to front the expenses on his/her credit card and chase people for payment.

Our product will enable groups to collaboratively design and book travel itineraries. Organizers will preselect flights, hotels or vacation houses, cars, and tours and then invite friends to vote and comment on options before deciding on final details. The process of inviting friends will substantially lower our customer acquisition cost. We will source inventory data from direct partners or from aggregators (GDSs or OTAs). Later, we plan to include features that allow users to split payments while booking trips and to record and share their past itineraries and travel experiences (photos, expenses, etc.) with other friends. This will increase engagement and make visits to our platform more frequent.

Vacation Races vacationraces.com

Brigham Young University

Vacation Races produces running events in major vacation destinations. The company’s initial focus is half marathons at major national parks. The annualraces that the company organizes create value by combining a running event with a high value destination. This value creation can been observed at other leading destination races, including events produced by RunDisney and Wine Country Half Marathons among others.

After months of testing the company opened registration for the Zion Half Marathon in September of 2012.

After a very successful race at Zion this past March, the company is looking forward to races at Rocky Mountain NP, Grand Canyon NP, Great Smoky Mountain NP and the Hawaii Volcanoes NP.

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International Business Model Competition

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2013 International Business Model Competition

Section Contents Judging Criteria Final Judges Semi-Final Judges

IBMC

Judging

International Business Model Competition

Judging Criteria 2013 International Business Model Competition Judge’s Scorecard Company: _________________________________________

(Scorecard Scale: 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = fair, 4 = adequate, 5 = good, 6 = very good, 7 = excellent) Did the team use the Business Model Canvas or similar tool to identify and track assumptions?

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Did the team clearly state their assumptions / hypotheses?

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Did the team identify the most crucial assumptions to test first (the ones that will kill their business)?

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Did the team design low cost, rapid, but reliable tests of these hypotheses?

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Did the team conduct the tests in a reliable manner?

Number of tests - # should be adjusted for industry, product type (web vs physical product), and business type (B2B vs B2c) Quality of tests - interviews are high quality, surveys & focus groups are much lower quality (you don’t know which questions to ask) unless interviews have been conducted first

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Did the team clearly state what they learned and how that learning informed a pivot?

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Was a pivot the team made supported by evidence or did they fail to pivot when the evidence clearly stated it?

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Has the team developed a prototype or minimum viable product (we want to reward prototypes over full products unless the product is the result of many prototypes tested with customers—in other words, we want to reward working from prototypes up to products, we do not want to reward just building products from the start)?

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Is the team solving a significant problem (defined in terms of money or impact)?*

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Does the team have significant evidence that the solution is validated (includes letters of intent, purchase contracts, sales, and partners)?*

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* these two criteria serve as tie breakers NOTE: Because web-based businesses are easier to test, these companies can often pivot faster. We tend to treat physical products, services, and web/software as slightly different categories in the judging, then pick the best of these categories to compete.

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Judges

Final Judges Nathan Furr Nathan Furr earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and is currently an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Brigham Young University. Nathan’s research focuses on market development and early stage entrepreneurial processes. In particular, Nathan has been working on ideas around Customer Development, Lean Startup, and the Nail It then Scale It methodologies which propose processes that entrepreneurs can use to dramatically transform their business models. In addition, Nathan’s other research examines issues of change, innovation, cognition and strategy in entrepreneurial and dynamic environments.

Professionally, Nathan has acted as the founder or advisor to startups in web 2.0, clean technology, retail, professional service, and financial services industries. In addition, Nathan is currently on the investment board of the Kickstart Seed Fund, an innovative early-stage fund. Nathan was also a consultant at Monitor Group, a premiere international strategy consulting firm, working with senior executives on a range of strategic and market discovery initiatives including strategy development, organizational change, technology commercialization, communication processes, strategic planning, competitive analysis, and marketing.

In addition to his doctoral studies, Nathan has a BA, MA, and an MBA.

Alex Osterwalder Dr. Alexander Osterwalder works as an independent author, speaker and advisor with a particular focus on business model innovation, strategic management and management innovation.

Besides his independent activities he is partner at Arvetica, a consulting boutique focusing on the private banking and wealth management industry. His role includes business development and the management of a peer knowledge exchange platform for senior executives in private banking (www.privatebankinginnovation.com).

Before that Dr. Osterwalder founded and ran BusinessModelDesign.com, a consulting boutique active in strategy consulting with a focus on business model innovation.

Dr. Osterwalder has a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems (MIS) from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he worked as a teaching and research assistant and published extensively. He also developed and taught a seminar on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D).

Steven Blank After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, Steven Blank retired in 1999. His last company, E.piphany, was co-founded in his living room in 1996. Blank also founded two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout (Pixar), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL), and a video game company (Rocket Science Games).

In retirement, Blank wrote Four Steps to the Epiphany, a book about building early stage companies. His latest book, The Startup Owners Manual integrates 10 years of new knowledge.

Blank now teaches entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program.

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International Business Model Competition

Thomas R. Eisenmann Thomas R. Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. He studies lean startups and management challenges in platform-based businesses that exploit network effects. Professor Eisenmann is Chair of Harvard's MBA Elective Curriculum. He teaches Launching Technology Ventures in the MBA Elective Curriculum, is course head of The Entrepreneurial Manager in the MBA Required Curriculum, and faculty co-leader of the Harvard Innovation Lab-sponsored Silicon Valley Immersion Program.

Professor Eisenmann received his DBA ('98), MBA ('83), and BA ('79) from Harvard University. Prior to entering the HBS Doctoral Program, Eisenmann spent eleven years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. As co-head of McKinsey's Media and Entertainment Practice during the early 1990s, he directed teams addressing strategic, organizational, and operational issues for clients engaged in network broadcasting; cable programming; newspaper, magazine, and book publishing; and motion picture production.

Professor Eisenmann is a member of the Strategic Management Journal editorial board. He is the editor ofInternet Business Models: Text and Cases, (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2002).

Eisenmann is a director on the boards of Harvard Business Publishing; Harvard Student Agencies, the world's largest student-run corporation; and Brilliant Film Fund LLC, a UK-based motion picture production fund.

Semi-Final Judges

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Paulina Hill

Polaris Ventures

Senior Associate

Romney Evans

True Fit Corporation

Co-Founder

Michael Kenworthy

Revolution Growth

Director

Jamie Coughlin

abi Innovation Hub

CEO

John Prendergrast

Blueleaf

Co-Founder & CEO

Mike Rothenberg

Rothenberg Ventures

Angel Investor

TK Kreuger

Wasabi Ventures

General Partner

Alex Lazar

Latham & Watkins

Associate

2013 International Business Model Competition

Section Contents Competition Overview Eligibility Criteria Eligibility Checklist

IBMC

Rules

International Business Model Competition

Competition Overview The International Business Model Competition focuses on identifying and precisely defining the assumptions of the new venture, testing those assumptions in the field, and then changing (pivoting) based on lessons learned. The IBMC requires a focus on testing assumptions rather than the typical approach of gathering secondary data, developing validated learning rather than writing a business plan, getting outside the building rather than researching inside the building, applying lean development rather than relying on product development, and “reinventing” or changing course rather than executing on the plan.

Fit with Other Competitions Students participating in the IBMC may participate in other types of competitions, including business plan competitions. However, it is important to clarify the fit with a business plan competition. Participation in the International Business Model Competition should occur before writing a business plan.

It is the strong belief of the competition founders that most businesses and business plans fail because entrepreneurs act on untested assumptions. However, entrepreneurs who first identify, test, and validate their business model assumptions in the field with customers are much more likely to develop businesses that succeed and are well positioned to dominate business plan competitions because they have facts, not guesses.

Eligibility Criteria The organizers of the International Business Model Competition (IBMC) have compiled the following set of eligibility criteria to ensure compliance with the spirit of the competition. All participating teams must comply with these rules. However, the organizers of the IBMC recognize that no set of rules can apply to every circumstance and therefore reserve the right to determine eligibility or to disqualify any team that they determine at their sole discretion to be in violation of the spirit of the competition.

Team Composition The IBMC is a competition for students enrolled at an accredited four-year institution of higher education anywhere in the world. Teams should consist of at least two (2) and no more than five (5) undergraduate or graduate degree-seeking students who are part-time (minimum of six [6] credit hours) or full-time and enrolled during a semester of the given competition’s academic year. Non-students may be members of the venture’s management team but the team competing and presenting in the IBMC must be made up of only students. The following clarifying restrictions apply: Prior IBMC Activity: Student teams who have competed and finished in the top four in a previous year’s competition may not compete with the same model in a subsequent year’s competition.

Ownership of Venture Student teams submitting a model must have played a significant role in the creation of the venture and hold a significant stake in the venture. To avoid ventures formed and managed by non-students who have given token equity to students for writing their business model, submissions should follow these criteria: Venture Founding: The student entrants must be founders on the entity’s founding documents.

Management Role: The student-entrant-founders must hold key management roles in the venture. In general, at least one student should have a C-level or VP-level position in the venture.

Equity Ownership: The student team must own significant equity in the venture. Each student-entrantfounder must own 5% or more of the total outstanding equity and all student-entrant-founders in aggregate must own 20% or more of the total outstanding equity of the venture.

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Rules

Models that do not meet these criteria will be suspect and will be required to submit a petition to the organizers of the IBMC showing evidence that they were a major contributor to the creation of the venture. Send any such petitions to BusinessModelCompetition@gmail.com.

Nature of Venture The competition is for new, independent ventures in a seed position: Booked Revenues: Existing companies that have booked revenue (prior to September 1, 2012) are not eligible to enter the IBMC. Professional Investment: Any existing company or idea that has received angel or venture capital financing is ineligible for this competition. Funding from personal sources, including "family and friends," is allowed for competition applicants.

Venture Type Exclusions: The following ventures are generally excluded from the competition: buyouts, 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.

Professional Mentor We suggest that all teams utilize an outside professional familiar with “business modeling and lean startup principles� as a mentor.

Dropping Out of the Competition If a team withdraws, or does not compete in the competition after accepting a bid, the team and university will be subject to disqualification from competing in the International Business Model Competition for that year and the following year—a two year ban.

Eligibility Checklist The following statements constitute the major entry eligibility guidelines for the competition: All IBMC participants from my team hold significant management positions within the company and are degree-seeking university students.

Each student team member has a minimum of at least six (6) credit hours, and is enrolled in a semester of the competition year.

My business model is original work, done by my student team.

My IBMC team played a major role in creating the venture.

Each team member owns 5% or more of the total outstanding equity and all team members in aggregate own 20% or more of the total outstanding equity of the venture.

My company has not booked revenue prior to September 1, 2012.

My company has not received angel or venture capital financing before September 1, 2012.

My company is not any of the following: A buyout An expansion of an existing company A real estate syndication A tax shelter A franchise A licensing agreement for distribution in a different geographical area A spin-out from an existing corporation

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International Business Model Competition

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2013 International Business Model Competition

Section Contents Competition Founding Durant School of Entrepreneurship: The New Entrepreneurship Paradigm Past Winners Success Stories

IBMC

History

International Business Model Competition

Competition Founding The Business Model Competition represents the first, international business model competition and is part of a ground breaking approach to entrepreneurship that focuses on the process of improving the inputs into entrepreneurship rather than the outputs. Specifically, rather than focusing on outputs like business plans or fundraising, this new approach focuses on the key tasks of testing unexamined assumptions in the field and developing validated business models which is usually manifest through deep customer understanding and traction. The IBMC is open to students all around the world.

IBMC Sponsor The IBMC is sponsored by the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. The Marriott School of Management's entrepreneurship program is consistently ranked as one of the top programs in the country each year.

IBMC Founders Nathan Furr (Ph.D., Stanford; Entrepreneurship Professor, BYU) Steven Blank (Entrepreneurship Professor, UC Berkley; Lecturer, Stanford) John Richards (Entrepreneurship Professor, BYU) Scott Petersen (Director, Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, BYU) The IBMC is currently co-hosted by Brigham Young University, Harvard University, and Stanford University.

Durant School of Entrepreneurship: The New Entrepreneurship Paradigm

Billy Durant

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The Business Model Competition is inspired by the stories of Alfred Sloan and Billy Durant. Although many people know Alfred Sloan as the CEO of General Motors and the father of the modern corporation, few people know of Billy Durant, the creative entrepreneur that founded General Motors, who grew revenues into the hundreds of millions before being ousted by the board for being too maverick. The Durant versus Sloan story is iconic because it mirrors the development of global economies and business schools after the industrial revolution when large firms displaced entrepreneurial firms and education became focused on theory and practice for managing large firms. Indeed, business schools were founded to train generations of “Sloan” managers who could manage the large corporations of the era. However, as entrepreneurship began to rebound in the 1970s, business schools slowly awakened to the need to teach entrepreneurship and to do so, borrowed theories that were developed for large firms, and tried to apply them in small firm settings. Strategic planning became business planning, product development became business development, and so forth. However, the tactics for managing large firms often focus on known problems and solutions whereas new ventures (whether in startups or existing firms) face a different challenge: unknown problems and unknown solutions. This means that the techniques to train “Sloan” managers may not work well to train “Durant” entrepreneurs. Despite the value that Sloan managers add to society, the world needs the brash innovativeness of Durant entrepreneurs tocreate the next wave of innovation. Recent research has begun to investigate this new approach to entrepreneurship education, the virtual concept known as the Durant School of Entrepreneurship.

History

What is the International Business Model Competition?

Over 85 percent of new businesses fail within a few years, often because they try to plan their way to success. What’s worse, research suggests that writing a business plan has no correlation with success.

It’s time to change.

The International Business Model Competition represents a radical departure from the past and the crest of a new paradigm in entrepreneurship. The IBMC is not a business plan competition. Participants won’t be rewarded for doing lots of library research, drawing fancy graphs, or crafting the perfect sales pitch to venture capitalists. Instead the IBMC rewards students for 1) breaking down their idea into the key business model hypotheses, 2) getting outside the building and testing their assumptions with customers, 3) applying Customer Development / Lean Startup principles to make sure they nail the solution, and 4) learning to pivot (or change) until they have a customer-validated business model.

Ultimately we believe this will dramatically improve the new student’s chances of success. The IBMC is the first international competition of its kind and is open to all students enrolled at an accredited four-year institution of higher education anywhere in the world.

How does a Business Model and Business Plan Differ?

The International Business Model Competition is about recognizing that any new venture is just a guess at a problem / solution and the only valid way to test whether those guesses are right is to “get outside the building” and start working with customers. So what exactly is the difference between a business model and a business plan?

Outside versus Inside the Building: Most business plans are written using library research. Successful business models are achieved through talking to customers and making changes based on feedback from those conversations.

Input versus Output Focus: Most business plan competitions are focused on compelling write-ups and slide presentations that check all the right boxes. In the IBMC, sleek presentations are not going to cut it.

And the boxes that do need to be checked are completely new and impossible to fake. The goal is to identify your assumptions and turn them into facts by getting outside the building. And when a startup has done this, the story is compelling and it is an awesome one to tell because it is based on facts. Validated learning about what customers really want is the stuff a business model is made of and music to the ears of potential investors.

Lean Development versus Product Development: Most business plans imply a careful development process to optimize the final outcome. Forget it. Apply Lean Startup principles to radically compress your development cycle and take a prototype (even if it is just a picture drawn in the late hours of the night) to jump start the learning process. Find the most creative but minimally viable product and start learning.

Change versus Fortify: Most business plans attempt to fortify/prove the core idea with evidence. Judges of the IBMC will be looking for instances where teams learned they were wrong and made a pivot in a new and right direction. Your application should focus on the lessons learned and “pivots” made—the more the better.

Chasing Customers versus Chasing Funding: Let’s face it, many business plans are written to raise money. Unfortunately the business plan formula doesn’t capture the answers VCs most want to see: real validation you can make a product customers want. Instead of chasing the money, chase customers. Getting into the field you will validate the model and raising money will be easy.

Launching versus Talking: Business plans often talk about what will happen in the future. The IBMC is about what you learned by applying a Customer Development / Lean Startup / Nail It then Scale It process.

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International Business Model Competition

What do winning teams do?

Still not convinced how a customer-validated business model differs from a business plan? Here is a condensed work plan for what a team actually does to have a chance of winning the IBMC. These are not formulas for success but illustrations of how forging ahead with a business model is different from writing a business plan.

Business Model Development (based on, Steve Blank’s Customer Development process/course, Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Generation book, Nathan Furr’s Nail It then Scale It process, and Eric Ries’ Lean Startup.

Find a Problem Find a big customer problem worth solving and write down all your key hypotheses about the business model to solve this problem. We recommend that you use Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas as a scorecard to track your assumptions and the changes that you make.

Nail the Pain Get outside the building and interview customers face-to-face to understand the “job” customers are trying to do, their current pain, and how they solve that pain. Pivot when you discover you are wrong.

Nail the Solution Develop a minimum viable product prototype and get outside the building face-to-face with customers to test your vision of the solution. Pivot when you discover you are wrong. Repeat these tests until you nail the solution.

Nail the Go-to-Market Strategy Get outside the building to understand the end-to-end customer buying process, the market communication infrastructure, the distribution infrastructure. Identify the leverage points. Pivot.

Nail the Business Model Use the facts discovered to validate the revenue model for the business.

Pivot Throughout the process learn to change course whenever you discover you are wrong.

Whichever particular method you use, the key steps are to 1) identify your assumptions, 2) get outside the building to test those assumptions, 3) validate the facts with customers and pivot as needed, and 4) identify lessons learned. For the competition, you will tell us about the process you went through, revealing the dead ends and surprises that you discovered along the way.

Remember, the goal is validated learning about the business model assumptions and failing early is a success compared to failing late. If you fail but have a compelling story, submit anyway—you may get the award!

Past Winners 2012 IBMC Finalist 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place 4th Place 5th Place -

2011 IBMC XoomPark (BYU) Excelergrade (Harvard) AutoBid (BYU) FlexLeg (BYU) MPREP (UC Berkeley)

Semi-Finalist - Forget-Me-Not Sourcing (UC Santa Barbara) - Go Time (BYU) - SocialMed (BYU) - Yo Mama Packed It! (Michigan)

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Finalist 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place 4th Place -

Gamegnat (American University) Kalood (BYU) MealDrop (BYU) TextWaiter (BYU)

Semi-Finalist 5th Place - Adviral (BYU) 6th Place - Eeve (University College London) 7th Place - See You At Seven (BYU) 8th Place - VuTherapy (BYU)

History

Success Stories — XoomPark xoompark.com Last year’s winner, XoomPark, offers online parking reservations for large, downtown events. These reserved spots are within walking distance of multiple venues such as sports arenas, theaters, restaurants etc. Event attendees no longer need to show up hours in advance to get a decent parking space at events or carry around extra cash to pay parking attendants. They can now simply reserve a close spot at XoomPark.com and show up right at event time to claim their spot.

When XoomPark competed in the IBMC last year, they had around two parking garages to test and validate their assumptions. Since then, XoomPark has over 70 parking lots in 18 cities. They have expanded their reserved parking for a greater range of events such as NBA, NFL, and MLB. XoomPark was able to win the Grow America competition, get featured in TechCrunch, and has been featured in newspapers across the nation.

XoomPark was accepted into the Utah-based accelerator, BoomStartup.

Ken Frei, founder of XoomPark, states that going through the business model process “helps you look at the core fundamentals of your business really quickly, and to see whether or not you are solving a critical pain.”

Testing and validating is still an integral part of XoomPark as they continue to test new ways to reach out to more customers. One pivot they have made since the IBMC was changing from cold calling parking garages to making key channel partners who already have a large audience of parking garages.

Success Stories — Excelegrade excelegrade.com Excelegrade is a platform that allows teachers to focus on the art of teaching. Excelegrade aims to give teachers their time back with 21st century technology. Much like textbooks going digital, Excelegrade makes K-12 classroom assessments digital by replacing paper-based tests with assessments on tablets, smartphones, and laptops.

Since winning the International Business Model Competition, Excelgrade has finished developing the first version of their platform and released it for public use. Teachers in 150 schools spread across 30 U.S. states and 7 countries are using Excelegrade.

The business model process has helped Excelegrade take a structured approach to every aspect of their business. Excelegrade states that the business model process requires the entrepreneurs to operate with an analytical rigor. “Before we spend time and resources building a new feature, we formulate a hypothesis and then try to test it efficiently as possible.”

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International Business Model Competition

Success Stories — Autobid, now Estify estify.com Estify provides innovative software solutions for the collision repair industry. The solutions Estify is developing increase efficiency, cut wasted labor hours, and maximize profitability for collision shops. The suite of products is designed to work in harmony to alleviate pain points faced on an hourly basis in collision shops.

Since Autobid competed in the IBMC, Autobid went on to win several other competitions and was accepted into AmplifyLA, an accelerator based in Los Angeles. It has progressed through product development and is currently in beta testing with live shops. A pilot program is underway, and it will be launching its live products within three to six months.

Estify states that the business model process helps them in all aspects of their business and that they could not have nailed a compelling market pain without it. Taylor Moss, co-founder, states: “We use the business model process on all the features we develop to include in our MVP for each product. Our sole goal is to provide a product that does exactly what our customer needs it to do to alleviate the customer pain points.”

Success Stories — FlexLeg flexleg.com FlexLeg is a patent pending revolutionary new mobility aid created to help those with temporary lower leg injuries, such as a broken ankle. FlexLeg allows you to walk without crutches or a leg support scooter, allowing little distribution in your everyday life.

Since the Flexleg competed in the IBMC last year, it went on to win over $50k in other competitions. Flexleg has finished development of its product, and will be launching the product this summer. Flexleg has been featured in publications such as Wired, Popular Science, and Gizmodo.

Michael Sanders, co-founder, states that the business model process is still an essential part of the company.

“We make assumptions all the time that we then go and prove or disprove. We've changed course several times because of new information we've discovered from talking with people from the various aspects of our business. This concept of proving assumptions and making changes based on the new information is what embodies the business model process from my perspective. Much like having a hypothesis about some design aspect of a product, you have to prove it out through prototypes and gathering data on those prototypes. It's the scientific method applied to business.”

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2013 International Business Model Competition

Section Contents Recommend Books Article: How Plans Kill You ... So Why Do You Do It Business Model Canvas

IBMC

Additional Resources

International Business Model Competition

Recommend Books Nathan Furr & Paul Ahlstrom

Nail It then Scale It

www.nailitthenscaleit.com

The Nail It Then Scale It process is a systematic way to add value to, and organize an individual’s experience with innovation and entrepreneurship. Each step of the process challenges the innovator to “get out of the building,” to test assumptions and validate the value of these assumptions. Furr and Ahlstrom designed this process through analyzing the innovative pursuits of successful entrepreneurial individuals, and by observing the habits employed by these entrepreneurs. Nail It Then Scale It leads hopeful entrepreneurs through the process of nailing a pain, nailing a solution, nailing a go to market strategy, and ultimately a successful business model.

Alex Osterwalder & Yues Pigneur

Business Model Generation

www.alexosterwalder.com

The first thing a reader should understand about this book is boldly printed on its cover, “You’re holding a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow’s enterprises.” Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers is an instructional guidebook, which lays out a systematic way to thoughtfully pursue new and innovative business models. The book is laid out in chapters detailing the authors innovative Business Model Canvas, established business model patterns, business model design, business strategy, and business model implementation process.

Steve Blank

The Startup Owner’s Manual

www.steveblank.com

The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company is not designed to be an easy read, or a weekend self-help booklet, but it is a hard-core reference tool for the serious entrepreneur. Steve Blank and Bob Dorf have compiled an exhaustive guide accumulating many of the latest discoveries in lean startup practices, and agile business model development. The manual breaks up the startup process into two large steps, Customer Discovery and Customer Validation, with several sub chapters further dividing the process into phases, covering topics such as creating your business model, testing products and selling them, as well as identifying advisory board members.

Rhoads, Swenson & Whitlark

BoomStart Entrepreneur

www.myeducator.com

Too often great ideas never become businesses. If they do become businesses they often are lost in the owner’s vision, and never become a customer necessity. Even if they do survive the startup phase, traditional marketing will inevitably bleed a startup clean of its cash. Boom Start: Super Laws of Successful Entrepreneurs provides readers a process to discover great ideas, to validate customer needs, and most importantly to carry out effective, efficient, and economic marketing strategies to aid a company’s path to success. The authors have given creative steps to ensure a product will alleviate a pain, and that a lean marketing strategy will prevail over traditional marketing methods.

Eric Ries:

The Lean Startup

www.startuplessonslearned.com

The Lean Startup takes an innovative look at entrepreneurship within startups as well as established firms. Eric Ries provides in-depth observations, as well as pragmatic tools to aid individuals developing agile products and services, by causing them to take a fresh approach at creating business development cycles. It is separated into three main parts, with explanatory sub chapters supporting Ries’s three-part process: vision, steer, accelerate.

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Additional Resources

Article: How Plans Kill You ... So Why Do You Do It Forbes: The New Entrepreneur

Nathan Furr

Research has begun to suggest that planning has serious downsides in an entrepreneurial venture. Perhaps more accurately, several recent academic studies suggest that planning has almost no correlation with success (Kirsch, Goldfarb and Azi, 2009; Lange et al. 2007; Bowers 2009). At a more personal level, I have come to believe that planning can actually be dangerous because it convinces us that our guesses are right by sitting in the office and searching on Google for the answers. In fact, the only real answers come from the market—from customers.

So Why Do We Plan: The Business School Fallacy Why we plan when it leads us to failure has deep roots in human nature and in the very study of business.

In terms of business, we often recommend that entrepreneurs write business plans for a simple reason: big businesses do it. Fifty years ago, entrepreneurship was not a topic in business schools. Management of large businesses was the only topic and these businesses engaged in strategic planning for the future.

When entrepreneurship emerged as a topic, we just borrowed our ideas on how to manage new ventures from traditional management. But that thinking has a fundamental flaw. Traditional management deals primarily with solving relatively more certain problems. By contrast, new ventures solve problems with high uncertainty and to do that they have to search, not plan.

So Why Do We Plan: The Human Fallacy The other reason we plan has to do with uncertainty itself. When we face uncertainty and ambiguity, as human beings, we want to plan to assure ourselves that there is a solution. The same holds true in a new venture, the most comforting and natural thing to do is to plan. In fact, as students we are often trained to find the one right solution—certainly in business and engineering schools—and then execute on those plans. For our careers, we are told to plan and optimize. But the truth is that when we face uncertainty, planning actually does very little. When I look back at my own career, it is so full of shocks, surprises, failures, u-turns and right turns, I could never have planned it. Being prepared always has value, doing your best always have value. But you can’t plan the unknown; instead you have to experiment your way there.

Planning Is Different than Search At the core, while many of us cling to planning and it has value to structure our thoughts, I wonder if what we are really trying to describe is search. Planning is different than searching. In the past, we used to recommend that managers and entrepreneurs start by writing a business plan. A business plan takes an initial guess, adds lots of “research” to that guess (mostly drawn from analyst reports only distantly related to the topic), and then supposedly gives the entrepreneur a plan to go execute. However, I have watched generation after generation of glossy and seemingly brilliant business plans lead students and entrepreneurs to waste time executing on what were really untested assumptions and guesses.

But planning is different than search and don’t confuse the two. Search means getting out into the market to try and understand what opportunities may be out there. It means carefully evaluating them, often through experiments and observation, and then focusing your efforts on the best option while being willing to change course if you are wrong. The difference is subtle but I think it boils down to being in your office and outside your office. You need to get into the world to search, whereas planning is more of an armchair activity and one that usually leads you awry. There is more to it than that, but I’ll leave that to a future post.

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Competition Contact Information If you have any urgent request or questions concerning the competition, please contact one of the Following IBMC administrators.

2013 Qualifier Competitions

Jeff Brown Assistant Director jeff.brown@byu.edu 801-367-3936

Colt Henrie Assistant Student Director dcolthenrie@gmail.com 801-657-9935

Daniel Marsh Student Director danielbmarsh@gmail.com 410-925-5526

Ryan Davis Assistant Student Director ryancraigdavis@gmail.com 208-406-3068

www.businessmodelcompetition.com

businessmodelcompetition@gmail.com