The Resolution (for now)
Lefty April 29th, 2007
After over six months of preparation, Materialite (my team’s entry into Stern’s annual business plan competition) went before the judges for the final time on Friday. Our presentation came off really well, and I thought we nailed all the judges’ questions. They were very generous with their praise, telling us that it was one of the best plans and presentations they’d seen in all their years of judging. In the end, though, they didn’t believe that our business had the potential for “social impact” that some of the other plans had. And so, we didn’t win.
After the event, one of the judges came up to us and reiterated the above, encouraging us to go forward with the idea and telling us that we would have had a real chance to win if we were in the “traditional” entrepreneurship competition rather than the social entrepreneurship competition (which requires that the business has a “double bottom line” of financial performance and the above-mentioned “social impact.”)
So all-in-all, the day was more encouraging than discouraging, though obviously there’s a bit of disappointment in not winning. Next we’re all going to take a couple of weeks off to rest up after all the stress of the final judging and then get together to discuss what to try next.