I've been a little disappointed with the lack of consistently accurate information regarding Tufts Business Plan competition, from before we entered, through the completion of it.
We initially read on the website '$50K in cash and services', and emailed to find out more information. We then learned that its $20K in cash and $30K in services. I feel this is very important information for a startup to know, as they need to allocate their limited resources appropriately to try to attain the resources they need to get started.
Through casual conversation with an advisor at the arranged lunch meeting (who later turned out to be a panel judge), I learned that the judges can (and have in the past) decide to allocate the cash and service resources among the teams, not allocating them just to a single winner.
Definitely a fine idea - give the right resources to the right people -- Help as many teams as you can. I just wish this had been more formally relayed.
I was there at the awards ceremony, and I barely caught what my own winnings were, much less the divisions of cash and services among the other teams. I would've loved to see the breakdown of exactly who got what -- I hope they're able to put them to good use!
Its been two weeks since the completion of the competition, with no press releases from Tufts, no updates on the competition website, but googling just now, I did come across this article from the day after the competition.
Unfortunately this article continues the trend of misinformation. I take issue with the following points from the article:
"A design for paint that can peel from surfaces took top honors yesterday in one of two competitions run by the Entrepreneurial Leadership program, and the three Tufts students who designed the product won a $50,000 grant from the School of Engineering’s Gordon Institute." - Two Tufts Alumni (one present), One Tufts Grad student, and one Cornell student. They won $10,000 in cash, and I didn't catch their other prizes.
"The two winning groups each received grants, legal services, storage space and capital network mentoring." - I don't believe thats the case due to the way they distributed the winnings. For instance, we (Stateless Creations) received office space and legal services.
"The paint design group beat out four other finalists who presented their business plans yesterday to a panel of judges. In the other contest, four finalists vied for the top prize." - Due to the fact they named 1st, 2nd and 3rd teams, some of which received more value in prizes than others; I would've stated this much differently.
"Michael Mintz, Kunal Gupta, and Matthew Hnatio, three students at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, presented their plans for Peelable Paint." - Michael and Kunal are alumni.
Hopefully others in the competition will help post their own, most accurate information, and set things straight for future teams and years when trying to learn more about the competition.