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Planning for Gold At business plan competitions across the country, judges sift through talented teams of presenters to find out who deserves the precious prizes--cash, services and VC exposure. Could your startup be the next to strike it rich?

By Nichole L. Torres

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There's an air of optimism about a business plancompetition. Teams bustle along, rehearsing their business planpresentations before delivering them to illustrious judges who notonly have business acumen, but are also often connected to large VCfirms. Permeating every conversation is a we-can-do-it attitude.Business ideas can range from the highly technical biomedicalindustry to the more ethereal creative arts arena. Yes, thecompetition part of it can be nerve-wracking, and the judges arenot what one would call an easy audience. Still, it's a greatopportunity to win cash and prizes for your business and get pitchtime in front of actual VCs--and it's also a huge learningexperience from start to finish. It may very well be in thedrinking water at a business plan competition, but the generalattitude is this: No matter what happens, we'll build abusiness.

The good news is that these hotbeds of entrepreneurialinspiration are taking place at more venues across the country (andthe world, in fact). A large percentage of business plancompetitions are associated with university MBA programs, noteexperts, but a fair number are also produced by communities, opento anyone in the local area or to businesses of a certain type toencourage economic growth. "There are definitely more opencompetitions," says Mark Cannice, director of the Universityof San Francisco (USF) Entrepreneurship Program. "As the wordspreads about allowing [people] the opportunity to develop acomplete business concept and offer it to professional investorsand executives, I think that experience has been so powerful andfruitful for so many...I think the demand for most universities tohave [competitions] seems to be increasing as well."

To successfully enter the business plan competition fray, knowthese caveats: Decide if you can enter a university-sponsored one(usually, someone in your management team is required to be an MBAor a graduate student). If your team has no MBAs, you might be ableto enter a community or corporate competition with many of the samebenefits.