Requirements and Guidelines

The McGinnis Venture Competition is a three-round competition, the first two virtual and a live final round. Submission requirements and guidelines can be found below. Please note: competitive teams will use all feedback from previous rounds to their advantage.

Round 1

Deliverable: Venture Questionnaire

All required questions must be answered in the Round 1 Venture Questionnaire.

Round 2

**Please note that you will answer your second round questions and upload your video on iStart as you did in Round 1.**

Deliverables: Updated Venture Questionnaire and Video Pitch

All required questions must be answered in the Round 2 Venture Questionnaire. This questionnaire contains questions from the round 1 questionnaire as well as additional questions. You may also update your round 1 answers at this time.

The 5-minute video pitch is a short investor pitch. You should pretend you are pitching to real investors and include all pertinent information. Record your pitch and insert a link to the pitch at the appropriate question in the questionnaire. Time limits are strictly enforced.

Watch an example pitch from Neon Labs.

Final Round

Deliverables: Mini Business Plan/Executive Summary and Live Pitch

It is suggested that you use the business plan [pdf] document as guidance when creating your business plan. You can add additional information to your business plan. Business plans are due Friday, March 8 at 11:59pm EST on iStart.

The live presentations will be 10 minutes long followed by 10-minute Q&A from the judges. Time limits are strictly enforced.

Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Guidelines

The authors of the questionnaires and mini business plans will retain all rights to the questionnaires and mini business plans regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition except as stated below. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.

All public sessions 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 public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media that may include radio, television and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions

Carnegie Mellon University may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plan and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at the McGinnis Venture Competition. Students retain all proprietary rights. The university may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items is used by the university solely to defray the costs of future competitions. The university has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.