Sponsored by:
Africa Business Club @Kelley School of Business Indiana University - Bloomington
Official Rules, Guidelines, and Submission Requirements
Application Opens: Sept 11, 2023
Application Deadline: Oct 13, 2023, by 11:59 pm EST
Finalists Notified: Oct 16, 2023, EST
Final Slides Due: Oct 25, 2023, by 11:59 pm EST
Final Presentation: Oct 27, 2023, 12:00 pm EST
Eligibility Requirements:
Participants will present their business ideas in the form of a business pitch, and to be eligible to participate, participants must meet the following criteria.
1. The business pitch must represent the original work of the team members. The author(s) shall retain all rights to the business pitch regarding its use prior to and following the competition. The business pitch must not contain any fabricated information about (but is not limited to) the background, experience, or education of the management team, the stage of product development, product performance claims, or market survey results.
2. The competition is open to African entrepreneurs based in Africa and black owned entrepreneurs based in the United States. This must apply to at least one member of the management team, but other people may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture. A participant may submit only one business pitch to the competition.
3. The competition is for African entrepreneurs who created, managed, and owned ventures in Africa or black owned entrepreneurs in the United States. In other words, African entrepreneurs must have played a key role in creating the venture, have key management roles and own significant equity.
4. The competition is for new idea and business development, with the goal of helping businesses registered for at least 6months to access additional funding. Companies must be less than 5 years at the time of submitting their application.
5. The competition is an initiative for new and upcoming African entrepreneurs on the African continent. Teams should respect the rights of their opponents. The Africa Business Club. @Kelley (ABC @Kelley) reserves the right to disqualify teams who act unprofessionally.
Guidelines:
1. The business pitch is limited to 7 pages maximum (12-point font) of text, excluding the cover page, title page, and exhibits.
2. The business pitch must follow the ABC @Kelley 2023 Business Pitch Format.
3. All eligibility criteria can be reviewed by ABC @Kelley on a case-by-case basis for exceptions.
Business Pitch Format:
Purpose of the business pitch: After reading the business pitch, the reader should be able to understand the business idea. The business pitch will be evaluated based on three main factors:
1. Uniqueness of business idea
2. Clarity of the business idea
3. Viability of the business.
Instructions:
Please answer the questions below in the appendix. You have flexibility in how you answer them, but please adhere to the page guidelines. Please give us enough information to understand your business, but please do not add filler material to fill the page..
Exhibits: you may provide exhibits (no more than 5 pages) within this document. You will NOT be evaluated on the content of the exhibits (or lack thereof); however, they may allow us to understand your pitch better. Financial statements are not required.
One final note: if this is your first time doing something like this, don’t stress about it! We’ve tried to construct it in a way that is as painless as possible. If you need any help, feel free to contact us at: rnaba@iu.edu, kelleyafrica@gmail.com
Guidelines for Finalists:
Executive summary: All finalists must submit a one-page executive summary. The document will be reviewed by the judges to have an idea about the business prior to the presentation, so focus on relaying key information. The format and contents of the executive summary are up to the entrepreneur.
Presentation: The format is up to the entrepreneur. The presentation time is 10 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Only one person from each team is allowed to present and answer questions.
Prize money:
· 1st place: $2,500
· 2nd place: $1,500
· 3rd place: $1,000
Business Pitch Format
Team Name:
Team Captain Name:
Team Captain Email address:
Summary (one page maximum)
Tell us about your business (avoid any technical jargon here).
S1. What is your product/service? What are the problems or pain points you are trying to solve? S2. What is unique about it?
S3. Who is it for?
S4. Why does this idea excite you?
Great! Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty.
Industry/Market (one page maximum)
Businesses are affected by what’s happening around them.
I1. Who is doing the same thing or something similar? (Their business model may be different than yours)
I2. What value do you bring that they do not? (Try to describe your value beyond simply price: ideas are rarely sustainable if the only difference is that they are cheaper)
I3. Why do you think that potential customers will value your product? What evidence do you have to support this?
I4. Describe any industry/market challenges that you foresee and how you plan to address them (should not be blank):
Marketing (one page maximum)
Businesses need to have customers and getting those customers can be a challenge.
M1. Who is your ideal customer? (Pro tip: you want to choose a market that is large enough to sustain your business, but specific enough that you can precisely speak to their unique needs)
M1.A. Macro description: Consumers (general characteristics such as age, income, etc.)/businesses (general characteristics such as industry, employee count, etc.)
M1.B. Micro description (also called psychographics): factors such as values, behavior, preferences, attitudes, etc.
M2. How many people fit the description above (your market size)?
M3. How do you plan to reach them so they know about, consider, and buy your product? M4. What is the message you need to convey to your customers?
M5. Describe any challenges that you foresee in marketing and how you plan to address them (should not be blank):
Operations (one page maximum)
Businesses need to have a plan for managing day-to-day operations.
O1. What technology do you need to develop/license to make this work? How do you plan to do this?
O2. Who will manufacture and distribute your product / provide your service? How will this work?
O3. Describe any challenges that you foresee in operations and how you plan to address them (should not be blank):
Financial (one page maximum)
Businesses (including non-profits) need to make money to continue operating.
F1. What is the estimated average price a customer will pay for your product/service? F2. What will it cost the company to provide this product/service per sale (estimated)?
F3. Keeping in mind the challenge of reaching new customers, how many sales do you expect to see in year one? Year two?
F4. Using the equation below, how much money (gross profit) do expect to make/lose in year one? Year two?
Year one number of sales *(price paid per sale - cost to company per sale) = Year one gross profit