2006 HBS Business Plan Contest

The annual HBS Business Plan Contest celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2006 and the fifth anniversary of the Social Enterprise track. Since its inception, the contest has spawned hundreds of business plans. Winners and non-winners alike have gone on to implement their plans and start successful enterprises.

The Social Enterprise (SE) track has provided a venue for students to create and develop ideas for social-purpose ventures, with more than 50 teams participating in the past five years. Participants in the SE track are judged by a distinguished panel of social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and venture capitalists, who evaluate a plan's potential for social-value creation and its likelihood of achieving success.

The 2006 contest marked a year of expansion for Social Enterprise. The contest broadened student eligibility to encourage cross-disciplinary interaction within teams and to incorporate the participation of students in other areas of the University with a focus on social entrepreneurship. In its first year of expansion, the SE track experimented with two subtracks—a concept stage and a pilot stage—which reflects the wide variety of submissions. The SE track accounted for 30 percent of the total plans in the contest, with student's representing four Harvard graduate schools and faculty advisers representing multiple disciplines.

Concept stage winner Yashmere (see below) exemplifies the blending of business efficiencies with socially oriented outcomes, as it seeks to bring much-needed income to minority communities in Western China. When Marie So, Carol Chyau, and Esther Hsu, and their teammates, including Jose Dias de Barros and Shawn Tan (both MBA '06), evolved the idea for Yashmere they specified that the enterprise would be "profit making but not profit maximizing"— pursuing financial sustainability for the business and stable incomes for the local population as a double bottom line.

Pilot stage winner Mountains for Miracles (see sidebar) plans to apply its business acumen toward the advancement of pediatric oncology research. The team benefited from the questions and suggestions of industry leaders on the judging panel, and incorporated much of the feedback in further development of their plan. "We appreciated the opportunity to present and defend our concept as a preliminary step before reaching out to corporate sponsors," says team leader John Serafini (HBS/KSG '07).

The winners of both SE tracks received $10,000 in cash through the Peter M. Sacerdote Prize and $10,000 worth of in-kind business-development services.

The contest winners receive prizes and recognition-but everyone involved in the Business Plan Contest benefits just by participating. According to a survey of past entrants, the opportunity to work with faculty, the feedback fromjudges, and the intense teamwork are all helpful not only in moving their ideas forward but also in exploring how entrepreneurship can play a part in their careers.

"The Business Plan Contest was one of the best learning experiences at HBS," says Jaynie Randall (MBA '03). "My team didn't come in first, but the process taught me how to present my ideas and sell them to investors, which is at least as important for social innovations as it is for profit-focused ideas."