Thirty-two finalist teams competed for a total of $72,000 at the 15th annual Business Plan Competition on Friday.
In this contest, undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurial teams present their business plans to panels of judges. The competition involves various stages of judging, and the teams that are ranked among the top three in their category are entitled to a share of the $72,000.
The competition is comprised of four categories: General Business, Social Enterprise, Medical Technology Undergraduate Track and Medical Technology Graduate Track. The first two categories are only open to Hopkins undergraduates, but the two Medical Technology categories have recently been opened to students across the country.
In the final presentation round, competing teams used different approaches to win over the judges in their categories. White Light Medical, whose business plan consisted of the manufacturing a probe that would improve the outcome of spinal fusion surgeries, seized first place in the Undergraduate Medical Technology category. The team was awarded $10,000 after showcasing a highly detailed and comprehensive presentation of its proposed technology.
In contrast, MyPsych, which won second place in the General Business category, used its presentation to appeal to the judges’ emotion through a moving anecdote. MyPsych’s business plan was centered around developing a technology that would provide users with the ability to exert greater control over their mental well-being.
Regardless of their approaches, teams often faced a gruelling interrogation by the judges at the end of their presentations. Judicial inquiry ranged from picking at details to broader and more critical questions. Some judges asked contestants to explain what their products were actually designed to accomplish and how they were planning to make money.
Taking this into consideration, junior Anvesh Annadanan, a biomedical engineering major and a member of the White Light Medical team, outlined the importance of clarity in a business plan presentation, particularly when working in the field of medical technology.
“The hardest part for us is to be able to communicate our idea … so that non-engineers will be able to understand what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and why it’s so effective,” Annadanan said. “The hardest part of preparing our presentation was conveying our idea from a more business-like perspective.”
Annadanan’s prioritization was by no means unfounded. Nathaniel Gordon-Clark, a member of the General Counsel at Canterbury Road Partners, LLC, and a judge in the Undergraduate Medical Technology category, also elucidated the importance of clarity in the presentation of a business plan.
“It’s sort of counter-intuitive; the simpler the explanation, the less you assume that [the members of the audience] know the industry … the more it’s in simple language … in terms of reaching a general audience, that really is the ideal business plan,” Gordon-Clark said.
At the same time, Gordon-Clark acknowledged that the overall impression created by a presentation is one of the most important factors in its success.
“A lot of it … is just ‘How does it sound?’ If you were seriously thinking about putting money in, rather than just judging it, what would you want to hear as a potential investor?” Gordon-Clark said.
Ensuring that judges adhere to a set of standardized criteria has been a perpetual challenge for the Business Plan Competition. Lawrence Aronhime, a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Leadership Education (CLE) and a key organizer of the event, commented on the limitations of the uniform criteria that is distributed to and utilized by the judges throughout the competition.
“They don’t pay any attention to the [criteria],” Aronhime said. “We’ve tried this many ways, giving them very detailed or … very flexible criteria. I’m not sure any of it has worked.”
Consequently, Aronhime explained that, while he and the organizers continue to provide the judges with specific criteria, they have also begun to encourage an informal approach to judging. The event’s organizers now stress the importance of taking a holistic view of the competing teams.
“I just think the judges make what we’ve tried to emphasize, [which is] a global decision, based on the plan, on the presentation [and] on what they think is the most viable business in the category,” Aronhime said.
