Today is an exciting day for ProFellow. We have officially been selected to advance to the second round of the 2011 Bright Ideas Challenge. The Bright Ideas Challenge is a business plan competition where the best and brightest in New Zealand submit their ideas to receive feedback from experts and for a chance at winning $25,000 seed capital.
2011 Challenge
The Bright Ideas Challenge is about providing people with the connections and support they need to take their idea to the next level. The Challenge is brought to you by Grow Wellington in collaboration with the Wellington innovation and investment community.
The competition is divided into three stages. The first stage involves describing your idea in 100 words or less. This sounds fairly simple and straight forward, but it’s actually pretty hard. The 100 words are the only information the judges receive about you and your idea, so they have to be clear, concise and compelling. This year there were 880 stage one submissions. For ProFellow to be invited to compete in the second round is truly an honor.
The second stage involves creating a winning business plan. All participants that make it to this stage will present to a panel of judges, much like you see on Shark Tank, Dragons’ Den, or other similar entrepreneur based shows. The judges provide instant feedback, and later convene to compare their favorites.
The third and final stage is the award ceremony. All stage two participants will attend a gala in November where the Bright Ideas Challenge winner will be selected.
Vicki and I are already hard at work on our business plan and have signed up to attend several workshops between now and September 23, the deadline for stage two. We’ll keep you up-to-date on our progress and plan to represent all our supporters by putting together the best plan possible.