Last week, I got to participate in an aspect of the GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition that often gets overlooked – assigning mentors to the preliminary applicants. As someone who is involved with marketing and promoting the competition this year, and was involved with doing so its very first year back in 2005, I know that our primary focus has been on the cash prize and services the winning company receives.
But the mentor assignment call last week - combined with all the panels I have listened to and papers and blogs and tweets I have read about what entrepreneurs really need and about what comprises a healthy startup ecosystem - reminded me that the aspect of the competition that connects an early stage company with a seasoned entrepreneur is also an incredibly valuable part of what the Business Launch Competition offers.
The importance of the mentors has never been lost on the Business Launch Task Force. When we received notice of the cash prize needed to be cut this year as a result of Georgia’s budget crisis, a decision had to be made about if and how we should proceed with the competition, which is now in its fifth year. The unanimous sentiment was that the cash is only a small portion of the value companies receive by participating – it is the exposure, connections, and mentorship far outweigh any monetary reduction the ultimate winner would receive. After observing the process, I can understand why they felt this way.
The process is something like this: early in the competition planning, a list of target mentors is compiled, and the task force and staff at TAG start reaching out to each of them to ask them to participate. Very few of these busy, successful people say no, I might add, and the ones that do are very apologetic and always provide us with their reasoning for doing so. We then look at the list of preliminary applicants and a short description of the company and compare it to the list of mentors and a short description of their background. Health care IT companies are matched with experienced professionals in Health care IT; Telecom companies are matched with successful telecom professionals. We introduce the company to the mentor and the mentor assists the young company with the next stage of the competition, which involves submitting a business plan on April 6th. This is a crucial time for the mentor relationship – I have listened to quite a bit of back and forth on the value or lack thereof of a business plan for getting funding, etc., but no one has ever argued that the process of creating a business plan is less than important, and doing this with the assistance of someone who is successful in the field is certainly valuable. The mentor continues with the company throughout the rest of the competition, coaching them on their pitch and corresponding presentations which are first presented to the semi-final judges on May 5th- 7th, and then (hopefully) to the final judges on June 2nd.
Only one company can be announced the winner of the Business Launch Competition each year. But over the past five years, TAG has connected almost 200 budding companies with seasoned, successful entrepreneurs, industry executives, and angels/venture capital company leaders for the sole purpose of providing them the vital guidance they need to be successful and these relationships, we are told, last long beyond the deadlines of the competition.
