Entrepreneurs’ Challenge Launch Party

The launch party for one of the world’s biggest business plan competitions, the Entrepreneurs’ Challenge, now in its fifth year, was a great success.

"One day you'll need more than a degree…"

The launch party for one of the world's biggest business plan competitions, the Entrepreneurs' Challenge, now in its fifth year, was a great success. Over 350 students came along to learn how they could get involved.

Piers Robinson, Student Business Mentor, explained the format of the competition. The Challenge is open to all Imperial College students, undergraduate and postgraduate, and is run by the Entrepreneurship Centre  in the Tanaka Business School. Students do not need to have prior business or commercial experience to enter.  Previous winners have come from a variety of departments, including Physics, Medicine, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering and Biological Sciences.

The "Ideas Challenge", the first part of the competition, runs this term and asks for a 2-3 page summary of a business idea.  Ten £1,000 prizes and ten £250 prizes are awarded to the winners at this stage.  In the spring term, the "New Business Challenge" offers students the opportunity to present a full business plan for a chance to win the first prize of £25,000 in cash and services, one of two runners up prizes of £5,000 in cash and services or a finalist cash prize of £1,000.

Kindle Solutions - better known as James Barclay, James Arnold and Paul Andrew, three final year Mechanical Engineering students, shared their experiences of entering the Challenge last year.  LagerServ, their idea of a time-saving device for pouring beer, proved to be a very popular choice with the students.

Successful entrepreneur Dan Germain, one of the founders of Innocent drinks, provided the inspiration for the evening. Three city workers left their jobs in 1998 to start up a company selling health drinks. They bought £500 worth of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them at a music festival in London from a stall with a big sign above saying 'Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?' They put out a bin saying 'YES' and a bin saying 'NO' and asked people to put the empty bottle in the right bin. At the end of the weekend the 'YES' bin was full and Innocent, now a company with a 30 million revenue, was born.

Teams who have taken part in the Challenge have been successful in London-wide as well as international business plan competitions, proving Imperial's students' to be among the best at developing and presenting ideas.  Some teams have also gone on to raise investment capital to make their businesses a reality.

The competition attracts companies such as McKinsey, IBM, Psion, Shell, HP, HSBC, Barclays Capital, Amadeus Capital and Innocent Drinks to sponsor the competition or pass on their expertise to our students, meaning entrants have a wealth of experience available to them as they put their business plans together.

The Ideas Challenge prize giving event is on Thursday 9th December, if you would like to join us please email the Challenge team: challenge@imperial.ac.uk.