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Thank you for entering the Minnesota Cup. We look forward to hearing and learning about your business idea.

For this first round of the contest, please provide your best, clearly written responses to the following questions. Please answer each question completely, but within the space provided.

When you hit "submit", your entry will be submitted officially into the MN Cup. If you wish to update or modify your entry, just come back to this page, make the changes and re-submit.

Finally, we do recommend that you initially type in your responses in a word processor, both so you can do a word count and confirm your responses fit the available space and it will help with spell checking etc.

Good luck in the competition and we look forward to reading your entry.

Title For Entry (50 Character Max)

Market Segment: Select a Market Segment Medical / Healthcare Technology Automotive Alternative Energy Child Care / Products Education Entertainment Construction Outdoors (Camping, Hunting, Fishing) Agriculture Consumer Products Retail Web 2.0 / Online Other

Type of Business Select a Business Type Product Service Other

Executive Summary of Business Idea (100 Word Max)

This is your elevator pitch - it should quickly and consicely summarize your plan.

Description of Product and / or Service (500 Word Max)

Provide a description of the product or service.

Provide an explanation of the unique selling proposition, competitive advantage and / or compelling idea. If your plan includes unique IP, please describe.

Market Size / Potential / Opportunity (500 Word Max)

Provide and explanation of the following.

• Size of opportunity (e.g., how big is the market for your product and/or service?)


• Target Audience (e.g., who will buy your product or service?)


• Who are your leading competitors?

Note : Where possible, please provide validation via reference to 3^rd party research.

Sales & Marketing (500 Word Max)

How are you going to reach the target market with your product or service?

• Summarize your marketing plan


• Explain your strategy for sales and / or distribution


• Provide pricing strategy

Operating Plan (500 Word Max)

Explain how you will bring this product successfully to market and make it a breakthrough success. Include :

• The stage of development you are at with the business (i.e. planning stage, research & development, in market) and explain how you'll get from your current stage to your goal.


• Management Team. Explain the expertise, experience and resources that you are bringing/assembling that are directly related to the business idea, technology and operations (and detail any major missing pieces)


• Summary Financials. Total capital needed, five year revenue expectations and path to profitability.

Legal Disclaimer

Click here to view terms & conditions.

I have read, understand and accept the terms & conditions of the Minnesota Cup competition:

Note: We highly recommend that you write up all of your responses first in a word processor so that you have a backup of your entry, spell check and do a word count. While we have a very robust system for managing these entries, we want to avoid any lost information should there be a disruption to the internet, site outage, computer crash or any other sort of unfortunate, uncontrollable behavior.

Supported By:

University of Minnesota Partners