Do you notice a lot of pitch and business plan competitions popping up in Alabama? There are more every year, and competitions are important because they build the skills of the entrepreneurs and inventors while expanding the community of people who support business startups and growth.
Competitions require prize money, and the organization supporting and running competitions usually starts out in fundraising mode. This is an important path for building the network of people who want to support startups. By having meetings and raising money for prizes, the competition founders also acquire judges and coaches, who help nascent startups go from their rough business idea to entering a competition and confidently sharing the specifics of the startup concept on stage.
Money talks, and we found that by having a prize pool with a larger grand prize, we were able to attract more people to a competition. At the Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute (AEI), an outreach initiative of The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business, we have three goals with the first being “finding ideas and entrepreneurs.” When we started expanding our entrepreneurship program in 2016, we were able to dramatically increase the number of students entering our competition by adding a $50,000 grand prize, courtesy of Edward K. Aldag, Jr. who contributed the funds. The year we announced the grand prize, the number of applications went up by 10-fold. Over the years, the number of applications and the quality of business plans have increased. And in addition to the $50,000 prize, we also have had additional contributions for new awards. This has all led to expanding the number of and types of competitions we run.
As of this year, we have grown our prize pool to $100,000. Students also win additional resources in the form of space at the EDGE, which is Tuscaloosa’s incubator and accelerator.
In addition to the student business plan competition, we started an all community-based pitch event, the River Pitch competition at the River Market in Tuscaloosa. This competition, which takes place in the fall, brings together students, faculty, staff and non-University of Alabama (UA) community members to pitch their ideas over the course of three minutes for 10 different prizes worth $1,000 each.
To move forward on our goal of finding ideas and entrepreneurs, we added two other competitions. The first is a community business plan competition focused on the non-UA student population, including household members in Tuscaloosa and West Alabama and students from other colleges and universities in the area, such as Stillman College and Shelton State Community College. The second is a competition just for faculty and staff at The University of Alabama.
With the addition of competitions for these other two non-UA student populations, we have had a rush of energy focused on entrepreneurship. The events that bring in students, community, faculty and staff have connected everyone. We also have a very high level of involvement from the UA alumni who help fund our initiatives as well as assist in judging and coaching people and teams.
After you start finding the innovators and entrepreneurs, the next step is to help them turn their ideas into businesses. Three years ago, we started our first pre-accelerator program called the Crimson Entrepreneurship Academy. This program provides startup teams with a summer of acceleration in addition to a stipend so they can spend their summer working full time on their businesses. The academy has flourished, even during COVID-19 when we ran the initiative virtually. By getting this pre-accelerator up and running, we were able to see many companies startup and grow. Examples include TankR, Crimson Cuts, Trips4Trade, Reboot Reforestation, Freaky Forests and D’on Cosmetics.
The next step past the academy is our new Crimson Accelerator Program. This initiative will help support startups by providing additional funding to help them move forward or to grow their businesses. After the accelerator, we will need angel investors to help these companies get to the stage where they can be self-sustaining or acquire additional rounds of funding.
We have been able to help our student, community, faculty and alumni startups through the process of becoming sustainable and growth-focused by involving numerous people along the way. The power of competition is the spark that started the journey for our team, and we continue to think competition helps ignite learning and growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Keep watching this space; you will see more and more competitions as the state of Alabama continues to build its own entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Learn more about the Growth and Innovation Leaders Forum.
The Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute, at The University of Alabama, focuses on identifying and empowering nascent entrepreneurs and supporting existing businesses throughout the state. AEI is located at The EDGE, an off-campus work and collaboration center which is also home to dozens of startups and growth-focused firms.
Theresa M. Welbourne, Ph.D., is the Will and Maggie Brooke Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Culverhouse College of Business and executive director, Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute and The EDGE. She works with students, faculty, staff and business leaders to help drive new venture development and ongoing growth within established firms. Email: twelbourne@culverhouse.ua.edu; @TheresaWelbourn.
