The Fowler Business Concept Challenge

Round One: Online submissions due by October 28
Each individual or student team will create a concept for a new business or social venture and submit a five-page explanation of the product or service by 11:59 p.m. on October 28. Submission requirements differ by track (see detail in the Requirements tab below). Sixteen semifinalists in each track will be chosen from these submissions to advance to the semifinals on November 22.

Round Two: Semifinalists pitch live November 22, 8-11:30 a.m.
Semifinalists will prepare a 10-minute presentation of their concept and present it on November 22 to a distinguished panel of judges from the entrepreneurial, business and investment communities.

Round Three: Finalists pitch live on the afternoon of November 22
The top four teams in each division will advance to the finals. Finalist teams will present their 10-minute presentations on the afternoon of November 22 to a new panel of judges from the entrepreneurial, business and investment communities.

• Winner: $15,000 per team
• Runner-up: $7,000 per team
• Second Runner-up: $4,000 per team
• Third Runner-up: $2,000 per team

Submission Requirements

Provide a brief description of your business concept following the prompts outlined below. Your submission can be a maximum of five pages, double-spaced, 11-point font.

1. Description: Provide a concise description of the proposed business and why it is unique/compelling.
2. Proposed Solution: What is your product or service? How will it solve the problem? How will your solution create exceptional value for the customer? How is it different from and superior to other solutions in the market?
3. Target Market: Who is your customer? What customer problem will you solve? How does your customer solve that problem today? What other solutions will compete for that customer?
4. Market Opportunity: Provide a preliminary estimate of the size of the potential market (number of customers that can be reasonably addressed).
5. Business Model: How will you deliver this solution to your customer affordably and effectively, and how will the venture make money (revenue model)?
6. Investment Potential: Why should someone invest in your venture? Explain why you will be successful.
7. Ethical Considerations: What are the ethical principles guiding your business model, operations, and decision-making processes? How does your business address fairness, transparency, social responsibility, and environmental impact? Are there any potential harms to stakeholders or society, and how do you mitigate those?

1. Description: Provide a concise description of the proposed business and why it is unique/compelling. What social or environmental problem does your business aim to solve? Provide some evidence of the scale of the problem.
2. Proposed Solution: What is your product or service? How will it solve the problem? How will your solution create exceptional value for the customer? How is it different from and superior to other solutions in the market?
3. Target Market:
   
   1. Who is impacted by the problem? How do they experience the problem today? How do they try to solve it today? How will they be impacted by your solution?
   2. Who is your customer (if different from above)? What customer problem will you solve? How does your customer solve that problem today? What other solutions will compete for that customer?
4. Market Opportunity: Provide a preliminary estimate of the size of the potential market (number of customers that can be reasonably addressed).
5. Business Model: How will you deliver this solution to your customer affordably and effectively, and how will the venture make money (revenue model)? How is your revenue model connected to your goal to deliver social impact?
6. Ethical Considerations: What are the ethical principles guiding your business model, operations, and decision-making processes? How does your business address fairness, transparency, social responsibility, and environmental impact? Are there any potential harms to stakeholders or society, and how do you mitigate those?
7. Potential Social Impact:How will your concept contribute to the common good? How will you measure the success of your venture against the problem it’s working to solve? What measures or metrics will you use?

To submit your concept, create a free account with Reviewr. You will need your concept name, your chosen competition track, the student ID numbers for each person on the team, and your business concept document. Submit Your Concept Here!

Judges will select up to 16 teams as semifinalists in each track. These teams will be given additional instructions to prepare their presentations for the judges.

The judges will select the top four semifinalists from each track to move on to the final round in the afternoon. A new panel of judges will select the winners in each track.

Preliminary submissions will be judged by a reviewer panel using the following criteria (equally weighted):

1. Originality: business idea is new, novel and unique
2. Value Proposition: a clear and compelling value proposition – legitimate, recognized need and appropriate solution
3. Competitive Advantage: creates more value for customer than alternative solutions
4. Market Opportunity: adequate market size; viable business model
5. Feasibility: reasonable prospect of funding and successful implementation
6. Stakeholders and Society: clear understanding and articulation of impact on stakeholders and society – demonstrate understanding of potential benefits, harms, ethical issues, that might arise in conjunction with this concept and how to address them
7. Well-researched: demonstrates clear understanding of customer/customer need, market, competitive set, solution requirements
8. Investment Opportunity: the business concept is attractive to potential investors as it has a good opportunity to have substantial return

1. Social or Environmental Problem: Research-based outline of a social or environmental problem that needs to be addressed
2. Originality: business idea is a new, novel and unique approach to addressing stated problem
3. Value Proposition: a clear and compelling value proposition – legitimate, recognized need and appropriate solution
4. Competitive Advantage: creates more value for customer than alternative solutions while also offering a solution to a social/environmental problem
5. Market Opportunity: adequate market size; viable business model
6. Feasibility: reasonable prospect of funding and successful implementation
7. Stakeholders and Society: clear understanding and articulation of impact on stakeholders and society – demonstrate understanding of potential benefits, harms, ethical issues, that might arise in conjunction with this concept and how to address them
8. Well-researched: customer/customer need, market, competitive set, solution requirements
9. Impact: the potential for positive social/environmental impact is significant

Add Semifinalist Orientation Date to List of dates on the right side: Semifinalist Orientation – Wednesday November 13 – 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Complete Resource Packet (either track)

Business Concept Track Resources

• The Fowler Business Concept Track: Overview
• Fowler Business Concept Challenge Crash Course
• What is a business model?
• How to size the market

• The Fowler Social Venture Track: Overview
• What is Social Entrepreneurship? Social Enterprise 101
• Quickstart brainstorming exercise for The Fowler Social Venture Track
• Social venture business model example
• Measuring Social Impact

• Concept Ideation Worksheet
• Build the Case for your Concept
• Business Modeling
• Pitch Example 1: VitiSchedule.mp4
• Pitch Example 2: Let's Make Lemonade.mp4

The competition is open exclusively to all University of St. Thomas undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows registered in the semester of the competition. Students can participate as individuals or as part of a team. Teams typically consist of two to three members. All members of a team must be current students with a valid St. Thomas student ID.

Submissions should be new concepts, not already existing companies. No concepts that have won or placed in the finals of a previous Fowler competition may be submitted again. Students are allowed to re-submit a concept that was previously accepted to the semifinal competition, so long as the concept did not advance to the finals round. Students may submit as many business concepts as they like, but students are limited to one concept eligible to compete in the semifinal and final competition.

All sessions of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations, video and slide deck submissions and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these sessions may be shared with interested people, through media that may include radio, television, printed materials and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that could possibly enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, sponsors, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant. By participating in the competition, entrants agree that no member of the Fowler Business Concept Challenge team — The University of St. Thomas, members of the judging panel, sponsors and their designate organizations — will assume any liability whatsoever for any disclosures of information that may be made (whether inadvertently or otherwise) by any judge, reviewer, staff member, audience member or other individual connected with, participating in, viewing, hearing, or receiving information from the competition.