1. Teams consisting of no more than five full-time undergraduate and/or graduate students are eligible, with at least one member of each team required to be a current Nolan student.
2. Students must be in good academic standing (i.e., GPA not less than 2.0).
3. Students may be members of only one team.
4. All team members must be present for the final presentations unless excused by the event organizers on the basis of an emergency.
5. Teams are encouraged to seek advice and counsel from successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and experts, but teams must present only their own work product.
6. The Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity applies to all aspects of the Competition.
7. Non-students may be members of the venture’s management team and may participate in planning the venture. However, they may not be involved in the writing of the plan, should not represent a majority of the management team, and cannot be speakers at the final presentation.

• The objective of the Business Plan Competition is to provide a meaningful learning experience and start-up opportunity for students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities at some point in their lives. Most ideas are for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. Thus, buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations are generally excluded. Licensing technologies from universities or research labs are allowed.
• Ideas must be drawn from the hospitality sector. For the purpose of this competition, “hospitality” is broadly construed and includes businesses providing support services to the hospitality industry (e.g., businesses such as Micros Systems that provide software and hardware to restaurant and lodging businesses). It is critical that teams clearly state the relationship between their business and the hospitality industry.
• Business ideas may be for both for-profit and non-profit ventures, however, they should not be charities

1. Each team must designate one member to complete the team's full registration and consent to the rules and requirements listed herein on behalf of all team members. If consent is not received on behalf of all team members, the team will be prohibited from proceeding to the next stage of the competition. Consent is required before the initial submission.
2. All author(s) of the pitch and the full business plan must agree that the submissions are their original work. The author(s) will retain all rights to the pitch and full business plan at all times, both before and after the competition.
3. Once registered, team members may not withdraw from their team. Withdrawal of a team member will result in non-compliance with the competition rules and elimination from the competition. Team member withdrawals will only be permitted with the permission of the event organizers and only after the withdrawing team member satisfactorily provides evidence of an emergency necessitating such withdrawal.
4. By participating in the competition, each student grants the Pillsbury Institute and its agents and assigns the right to post the pitch presentation decks and/or the final business plan on a password-protected website so that reviewers, judges, and administrators can access the materials, post comments, and assign numerical scores to the submitted items based on an established rubric.
5. Finalists are required to sign a waiver allowing the Pillsbury Institute to electronically record their final presentation. All finalist author(s) will be asked to sign an audio/video release form allowing Cornell University to use the final presentation recording and materials internally for faculty, staff, students, and the Pillsbury Institute. In addition, final presentation recordings may be posted on any Cornell University-owned or controlled website for public consumption.
6. Finalists are required to sign a money allocation agreement before the Final Presentation. In this agreement, finalists must indicate whether their company will be competing, in which case prize money will go directly to the company, or whether they will be competing as individuals. If competing as individuals, finalists must indicate how any prize money will be allocated among team members. This agreement is intended to:
   1. Allow companies to be the official competitors in the competition.
   2. Prevent potential disagreements regarding the division of prize money among team members after the competition winners are announced.

Some aspects of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media, which may include radio, television, social media and the internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered public information. Participants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions. We are unable to ask judges, reviewers, staff, or the audience to sign non-disclosure statements or otherwise maintain the confidentiality of any information presented. However, the Pillsbury Institute will take reasonable efforts to limit distribution of business plans presented at the competition, but we cannot guarantee that third parties will not obtain access to the business plan. The final presentation is open to the public and is electronically recorded. Attendance by media personnel is expected and final presentations will be posted on university-controlled websites for public consumption

If a team uses copyrighted materials and/or images from a third-party in their presentation or business plan, they must obtain permission and authorization in advance from the owners to use this material.

Pitch Guidelines

Full Business Plan Guidelines

Up to 10 teams will be invited to submit full business plans. The electronic copy must be named according to the following format:

Any team that does not submit their full written business plan by this date will be disqualified.

Up to five teams will be selected to compete as finalists and compete in the final presentations based on the quality of the full business plan. Outstanding submissions that do no score in the top 5 will be invited to present a 60-second “spotlight” pitch during the finals. The spotlight pitches involve a single microphone, and no slides. Spotlight teams are eligible for the Audience Choice Award.

Oral Presentation Guidelines

Up to five teams will be invited to participate in the final presentations, held during Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC) at the date noted in Important Dates and Deadlines.

The final presentations will be delivered in front of a live audience to a panel of judges comprised of venture capital and private equity professionals and entrepreneurs.

Teams have 8 minutes to present their idea to the judges and audience, followed by a 5 minute question and answer session from the panel of judges. Teams can assume that the judges have read their full business plans. The order of presentations will be determined randomly.