Local Entrepreneurship Competitions Best Practices

What is a Local Entrepreneurship Competition?

You may decide to host a locally-organized event (at the county, city, school, or classroom level) that bring participants together for the purpose of a hands-on entrepreneurship experience. Typically, local entrepreneurship competitions (often called “e-fairs”) involve participants preparing a written business plan or executive summary, a “tradeshow booth” (similar to a science fair tabletop display), and a pitch or presentation. Then, on a given day, participants compete against one another in teams or individually. Participants’ work is judged by local entrepreneurs, mentors, or others. Many successful events are organized through a teacher or school as a classroom project or extracurricular activity, but other groups can be successful at organizing an event as well.

Important Elements

- A written executive summary

- Access to resources, like a mentor or other education

- A formal presentation or an additional oral component of some sort – pitch, interview and/or a tradeshow

- Competitive process by which participants’ work is evaluated/scored

- Judges – usually members of the community

- Awards or prizes (whether it’s a 1st place certificate or a cash award; some token for participation)

Other Ideas

- Invite the community at large to visit the tradeshow

- Invite an entrepreneurship guest speaker to talk to participants and/or others

- Seek business owners to mentor participants

- Invite businesses to sponsor the event

Expectations of the Host

- Decide the format and other parameters of the event (who, when, where, etc.)

- Find a mentor to help and decide how much education you can do on the topic of entrepreneurship

- Create or find applicable forms (judging forms, business plan outline, etc.)

- Decide your budget and how to fund the event (Will there be lunch? Awards? Other expenses?)

- Decide how to get entrepreneurs to participate

- Coordinate the event (print documents, organize schedule, find a speaker, etc.)

- Promote the event! Invite judges to participate and invite students, businesses, and others to attend

- Run the event on the day of (give instructions, keep schedule on time, tally scores, give awards, etc.)

- Send thank you notes and write articles for newsletters, newspapers, etc.