OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
2014 campaign book
PLAN TODAY lead tomorrow 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
03 04 05 06 07 09 11 12 13 15 17 20
What is NVC? History Brief Campaign Objective Blast Emails Competition Rounds Installations Save The Date MAX and OBJ ads Web/Social Media Event Materials Thank You
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WHAT IS THE NVC?
The New Venture Championship (NVC), presented by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship, is the original six-round business competition for graduate students. It was founded in 1992 and has become the premier international entrepreneurial investment competition. This is the moment when scholastic experience transfers to real-world opportunities. NVC’s mission is to develop skilled and knowledgeable entrepreneurial leaders who will successfully confront the ever-changing business environment with creative and innovative solutions. MBA students from the top business programs worldwide are invited to Portland, Oregon. Teams come from as far away as Hong Kong and Thailand as well as all over the U.S. Here they present and defend their business plans to a panel of judges for the chance to win the grand prize of $25,000. All NVC competitors receive cash awards and advice from Northwest business executives that will help make their business plan a reality.
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HISTORY
NVC was created in 1992 by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business to give graduate students in the Pacific Northwest the opportunity to put their business plans to the test. NVC was the original six-round business competition, giving students experience in written plans, trade shows, elevator pitches, and presentations. Three teams attended the first competition. Since then, NVC has grown and expanded to include teams from around the world and across the United States. In 2014, teams from as far away as Hong Kong, India, and Thailand travelled to Portland to join fifteen American teams and compete for the $25,000 Grand Prize.
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BRIEF OBJECTIVE: Promote the competition’s “brand” recognition to help increase attendance at the New Venture Championship event while creating awareness and excitement around the competition within the Portland business community. TARGET AUDIENCE: Our advertising efforts will target the C-level executives, angel investors, and entrepreneurs. CURRENT POSITION: NVC is an event that abruptly shows up in Portland for one weekend a year and then disappears until the next year. There is no connection or engagement with the Portland business community. desired POSITION: NVC is an annual event held by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship that presents an opportunity for the Portland business community and enthusiastic MBA students to connect. SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHT: NVC is the premier entrepreneurial competition in the Pacific Northwest.
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CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVE
Everyone that comes to NVC has a dream, a dream of making the world a better place. Throughout our campaign we hope to recognize those dreams and help the community see that NVC makes the world a better place. Every entrepreneur, business-person, and investor once had a dream of starting their own successful business. For them, the students are a reflection of when they were in college. We hope to bridge the gap from business-person to student. Our campaign focuses around guerrilla tactics partnered with traditional advertising that works together to pique our audience’s interest and create a press buzz around NVC.
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BLAST EMAILS
The email blasts were sent out to grad schools around the world calling for submissions. Many schools have business competitions, but there are several traits that set NVC apart. We used the email blasts to highlight the different attributes to show why the school’s graduate teams should apply to NVC. We focused on the judge’s feedback and the atmosphere of the Portland business world. More people applied to the 2014 competition then ever before.
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COMPETITION ROUNDS opening 16 teams
BEST 1-PAGE PITCH
START-UP
Best 1 Page Pitch & Best-Written Plan Prior to the event, teams submit their executive summaries and business plans. A succinct executive summary and well-written business plan is often the greatest influence on investors to offer an initial investor meeting. The business plan that is most likely to secure that initial meeting is the winner. Additionally, Palo Alto Software awards the best 1-page pitch.
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TRADE SHOW
Start-Up Round The Start-Up round was created in partnership with the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network. During this round, each team introduces their business venture with an elevator pitch and a presentation, which consists of a 30 minute running clock during which time judges may ask questions.
ELEVATOR PITCH
Trade Show The Trade Show offers a welcome reception for all teams, advisors, event judges, and guests from the Portland business community. It allows teams to present their venture in a classic trade show environment. The Elevator Pitch Without utilizing any props, teams have only one minute to effectively pitch their venture to judges and potential investors.
lightning round semifinal round
12 teams
16 teams
final round
4 teams
Semifinal Round Each team formally presents their venture plan to an esteemed panel of judges that includes venture capitalists, seasoned business executives and experienced entrepreneurs. At the end of the round each team is briefed individually and receives extensive feedback from the judges’ panel, a key element of the New Venture Championship learning model.
OEN Lightning Round The twelve teams not advancing to the final round will enter the OEN Lightning Round. Without the use of any equipment or visual aids, each team makes a “quick” pitch to a new panel of judges. The panel discusses strengths and weaknesses of each plan, after which teams will have only 15 minutes to adjust their plan and re-pitch it to the judges.
Final Round Four teams advance as finalists and present their business venture to a panel of of prominent investors and business executives, during which they may ask questions. Presentations are followed by a private feedback session. Winner is then awarded the 2014 New Venture Champion and presented the Reinmuth Cup.
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INSTALLATIONS
elevator: The elevator pitch is one of the most exciting rounds of NVC. Within 60-seconds, each team must pitch their business idea in a clear, concise, and engaging presentation. We realized that the excitement of the elevator pitches paired with the passion required in entrepreneurship gave us the perfect opportunity to engage the public. We placed a branded elevator in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Following the theme of the NVC elevator pitch, we asked people off the street for their own pitch, signifying that everyone has a dream to run their own business or create ma jor change within society. We filmed the pitches and created a collection of inspiring ideas. The installation drew media buzz from various online media outlets as well as Portland’s KGW news station (http://www.kgw.com/news/ business/joe-smith/UO-challenges-students-to-make-60-secondbusiness-pitch-251483191.html). chalkboards: We placed large chalkboards at the NVC event with the prompt “What’s your biggest dream?” and encouraged the competitors and judges to fill the board with their own personal dream solution to a problem. The idea was to inspire thought and interest for NVC and its objective for those who were involved.
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MAX & OBJ ADS
Ads were placed on the side of Portland MAX line buses. The MAX runs through downtown Portland and gave us a large number of impressions. The ads were visible to the Portland business community as well as pedestrians walking around Portland and it increased the general awareness of the competition. We knew that our audience frequents the Oregon Business Journal and that we would get a high number of impressions from our efforts there. We placed ads within OBJ that ran a month prior to the competition.
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OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP GRADUATE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION
#uonvc
April 3-5th | PDX | oregonnvc.com
23rd Annual
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP GRADUATE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION APRIL 3-5th | PDX | OREGONNVC.COM
THIS IS THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS
watch the world's
best compete
#uonvc
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
APRIL 3-5th
PDX OREGONNVC.COM
GRADUATE 23rd Annual
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP GRADUATE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION
APRIL 3-5th | PDX | OREGONNVC.COM WATCH THE WORLD’S BEST COMPETE
NETWORKING opportunities,
venture capitalists,
BE AT THE FOREFRONT OF TOMORROW’S BUSINESS
#uonvc
Presented by the University of Oregon Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship
BUSINESS
PLAN COMPETITION
watch the
world's best
mba teams
compete #uonvc
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SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY Our overarching goal for social media was to encourage discussion and excitement around NVC by connecting and engaging with competitors and individuals in the Portland business community. FACEBOOK: This social media platform was mostly utilized during events prior to and during NVC. We posted pictures and updates during the Pioneer Courthouse Square Elevator Pitches and during various rounds and events during NVC weekend. The main objective for Facebook was to publicize upcoming events and share real-time updates. TWITTER: Twitter was our main platform for audience engagement. We tweeted NVC specific topics, links to relevant business articles, retweeted posts by our sponsors and judges, and posted conversation starters with Portland business people. We used #NVC2014 and encouraged others to utilize it for their NVC related posts. We also used #PDXbusiness to ensure our tweets would pop up on the radar of our target audience. Overall, we noticed a 20% increase in followers and an 11% increase in authentic mentioned posts.
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FACEBOOK PAGE
TWITTER PAGE
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EVENT MATERIALS 23rd Annual
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP GRADUATE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION
TODAY’S EVENTS THURSDAY APRIL 3RD
NVC CHECK-IN AT REGISTRATION TABLE 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM (CONFERENCE CENTER)
OEN START-UP ROUND 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM (CONFERENCE CENTER)
TEAMS: TRADESHOW SET-UP 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM (UO WHITE STAG BUILDING)
JUDGES: OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM (UO WHITE STAG BUILDING)
TEKTRONIX TRADE SHOW & ELEVATOR PITCH COMPETITION 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (UO WHITE STAG BUILDING)
ROUNDS
TODAY’S EVENTS
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP DATE: PAY TO THE ORDER OF:
APRIL 5, 2014
$25,000.00
TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND AND 0/100 MEMO: 2014 NVC CHAMPION John Hull NVC Competition Director
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WINNING TEAM’S CHECK
DOLLARS
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
OREGON NEW
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
OREGON NEW
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
presented by
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
NAME BADGES
OREGON NEW
NAMETAGS
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
NAME TENTS
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EVENT MATERIALS
NEW VENTURE VEN TURE
NEW VENTURE VEN TURE
Presented by the University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business
Presented by the University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business
23rdl annua
CHAMPIONSHIP
23rdl annua
CHAMPIONSHIP
OREGON NEW VENTURE CHAMPIONSHIP
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON Charles H. Lundquist Center For Entrepreneurship
Saturday April 5, 2014
________________ John Hull
NVC Competition Director
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________________ Cornelis “Kees” de Kluyver
Dean and James & Shirley Ripper Distinguished Professor Lundquist College of Business
PROGRAMS AND CERTIFICATE
THANK YOU The University of Oregon’s New Venture Championship would like to thank the following individuals and groups for their continuous support and commitment: Business Innovation Institute: John Hull, Executive Director Business Innovation Institute, Asst. Dean for Centers of Excellence Amy Fortuna, NVC Coordinator Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship: Lauren Looep, LCE Graduate Teaching Fellow Whitney Alexander, LCB Graduate Teaching Fellow Spencer Peterson, LCE Student worker Alpha Kappa Psi, Business Fraternity: Justin Boulter, Student Team Ambassador Marcus Jensen, Team Ambassador Victor Morales, Student Team Ambassador Henry Nuvue, Student Team Ambassador Allen Hall Advertising: Professor Chris Chavez Professor Dave Koranda Professor Chris Stadler Kayla Ackerman, Account Manager Spencer Adrian, Media Planner Jenna Balogh, Designer Shelby Dunlap, Social Media Nicole Ginley-Hidinger, Writer Gianna Graziano, Jr. Strategist Madi McCallum, Account Manager Amelea Renshaw, Public Relations Taylor Tsuji, Strategist Peter Ye, Producer Allen Hall Advertising produces the materials and advertisements for the New Venture Championship. This was developed through a partnership between the Lundquist College of Business and the School of Journalism and Communication sponsored by Mary and Tim Boyle. We would like to give a special thank you to Mary and Tim Boyle. Without their generous contribution, NVC would not be possible. The Boyle’s continual support enables students across a variety of focuses to get the opportunity to learn and develop in a professional setting. Thank you for encouraging this growth.
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