Startup School 2.0: A Business Plan Workshop Series
presented by: Voodoo Ventures, Tulane TEA, SENO, VoodooTEQ, The Feast
It's time for the second Startup School to prepare entrants for the Tulane Business Plan Competion. The first Startup School was a huge success. Check out the wrapup and pictures. Startup School will be held on January 29th and February 7th at the Business School on Tulane's Uptown Campus. One major change for these workshops will be the addition of a Social Entreprenuership track because the Tulane Business Plan competion has both a business innovation and social entreprenuership track.
Question: Do I have to be entering the Tulane Business Plan Competition to participate?
Answer: NO! You just have to be passionate about building a business and want to learn and collaborate!
Part 1: Building a Business (& Business Plan) that Rocks
- Thursday, January 29th from 5:30 - 8:30pm
- Tulane University - Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II - Room 1111 - Map
- Learn how to write a winning business plan. Local entreprenuers and coaches will lead a group discussion and share resources about the fundamentals of a sound business plans. Learn about the sections you should cover, how to prepare financial pro-forma's, and pitfalls to avoid. Learn about focusing your business on the triple bottom line, doing good while doing well, building a sustainable business, and how to communicate all of this in your business plan.
- Resources: Check out the articles that we've compiled to craft that perfect plan.
- Prepare: Come ready to give your "elevator pitch" to break-out groups. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just be ready to pitch.
- Speakers:
- 5:30 - Will Donaldson opening remarks
- 5:35 - 7pm - 10 min talks w/ immediate 5-10 min Q&A
- Robbie Vitrano - social / entrepreneurship startup scene NOLA
- Chris Schultz - biz plan lessons & tips
- Kyle Berner - Steppin' Easy: Creating Pathways to Ethical Consumerism
- Chris Reade - Nuts and Bolts of Making It "Real"
- 7-7:30 - 90 sec Elevator Pitch with all participants
- attendees get to pitch in front of the room. Coaches give quick feedback. (Richard Montgomery, we'd love to have you as a coach if you can make it).
- each coach has 1 ticket to The FEAST conference to give away to their favorite pitch at the end of it
- Will Donaldson wraps it up
Part 2: Workshop Your Business Plan
- Register here for the business plan workshop
- Saturday, February 7th from 1pm - 3pm
- Tulane University - Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II - Room 1111 - Map
- Workshop your plan with experts. We will have a "speed dating" sessions with biz plan coaches who are local entrepreneurs, heads of non-profits, and investors. You will have a session with each of them to workshop your plan, review strengths/weaknesses and get feedback on your idea. We'll match you with coaches based on your business plan entry, either business innovation and social entreprenuership track.
- Prepare: Come ready with a draft of your executive summary or the whole plan if you've got it.
- Here are some questions to stimulate conversation between coaches and participants.
- Coaches for the Workshop listed below (contact Chris Schultz) to add yourself:
- Chris Schultz
- John Laurie
- Reid Stone
- Kyle Berner
- Richard Montgomery
- Neel Sus
- Robbie Vitrano
- Patrick Comer
Limited Space
Startup School 2.0 will be bigger and better now that we've moved it to Tulane thanks to Will Donaldson of the TEA. We'll still have limited tickets, so it is critical that you sign up to attend if you are going to come so we can get an accurate count. Part two, workshopping your business plan, will have limited space, because we only have a limited number of coaches to work with participants. So register early to claim your spot.
Cost = FREE
Free Tickets to The Feast
AllDayBuffet is bringing The Feast conference to New Orleans February 6, 2009. If you haven't heard about it yet, it fits incredibly well with what we are doing with Startup School 2.0, the conference is a social innovation conference that is happening in New Orleans for the first time this year. 
Michael Karnjanaprakorn has generously offered four (4) free tickets to attendees of January 29th session of Startup School. We'll be giving them away that night, so you must be present to win. In the meantime, you should plan to go to the conference anyway. I'll even be speaking. :)
Business Plan Coaches
We will have a great team of coaches who will help the participants with each of their plans. If you're interested in participating as a coach, please contact me.
Competition
- Tulane Business Plan Competition - 1st Round Deadline February 15, 2009 - Entry details.
- IMPORTANT: One very important thing to keep in mind is that all entries must have a student on the team. This can be a student from any university, it is not limited to just Tulane Students. If you have a great business idea, and want to bring a student on-board to build your team out, please contact Will Donaldson who will help to match you with an interested student.
Details, Details
- Confidentiality - Share a little or share a lot. What you share about your plan is up to you. We won't be signing NDA's. My personal belief is you'll get the most out of the workshops if you are willing to open up and talk about your idea; you'll have to talk about it eventually, right? But, I understand not everyone is comfortable with this, so you don't have to share your idea with other participants. Business plans, drafts, and executive summaries will be held confidentially, so there won't be any distribution of them among participants that we faciliate. If you want to distribute it for feedback, that is up to you.
- Full Disclosure - The coaches reserve the right to enter the Tulane Business Plan Competition.
- Commitment - If you sign up for the event, please come. I am working hard to assemble a great group of coaches who are giving their time. Please respect that and show up.
Sign Up to Participate
Please add yourself to the wiki on the list below and signup here to participate. Participation is limited, so sign up right now.
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