Cornell University students, faculty and alumni are invited to enter the first annual Business Idea Competition sponsored by the Big Red Venture Fund, a student-managed combined fund and business incubator for start-up ventures. The deadline for entering the competition is March 31.

The competition winners will not only win cash prizes – first place is $10,000, second is $2,500 and third is $1,000 – but also a thorough evaluation of their business ideas by the Big Red Venture Fund (BRVF) for potential funding and the opportunity to draw on the resources of the fund's incubator to help bring the businesses to life. However, contestants are under no obligation to pursue their business idea.

The BRVF is a Johnson Graduate School of Management student-run venture capital fund that gives top Cornell MBA students the opportunity to serve as fund managers, making and managing investments in early stage business ideas. The fund is designed to help stimulate entrepreneurship among Cornell students, faculty and alumni, and it is expected to raise approximately $10 million to fund numerous "seed" investments of $50,000 to $250,000 each.

"To enter, contestants do not need to develop an entire business plan," says Jeff Peterson, a second-year MBA student and the BRVF fund manager in charge of the Business Idea Competition. "They just need a good idea that has promising potential."

Contestants must fill out a two-page application, available at or from the faculty support office, 304 Sage Hall. The BRVF and members of its advisory board will first screen all the business ideas and then select a set based on their merits and likelihood of yielding successful businesses. In the second phase, competitors will present their ideas to the BRVF and the advisory board members. This round will provide competitors with the opportunity to answer questions about themselves and their business ideas.

In addition to the Business Idea Competition, the fund accepts business plans throughout the year from anyone with a complete business plan or executive summary. The Johnson School student fund managers, who receive course credit for their work on the BRVF, regularly review business proposals, decide which ones seem most promising and link the idea people with business students who will help sharpen and refine their plans. The fund managers, which this year are a diverse group of Johnson School students that include an accountant, law student, investment banker and a computer scientist, among others, also decide which business plans to invest in. In addition to providing feed capital, the BRVF also has the ability to incubate the ventures.

"By investing in these companies, the fund becomes part owners of the businesses, while helping entrepreneurs grow the businesses into public companies over a realistic time horizon," says Peterson. "While the Big Red Venture Fund is legally separate from Cornell, all profits generated by BRVF remain within Cornell University."

The Big Red Venture Fund was launched last year as a Park Fellows project by several students in the Johnson School. The school's Park Leadership Fellows Program supports 30 exemplary MBA students in each class who have the potential to become business leaders. It requires fellows to initiate a project that benefits the Cornell or local community while they are students and encourages a lifelong commitment to community service.

The fund gives its donors an opportunity to support Cornell in a new way, while getting a first look at new, potentially lucrative business ideas and possibly gain tax advantages, says David BenDaniel, the Don and Margi Berens Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Johnson School, who serves as the fund's faculty sponsor. So far, the fund has received funding commitments from several distinguished Cornell alumni. A donor's minimum donation, according to the fund's bylaws, is $250,000. In addition, donors have the opportunity to invest in fund-supported businesses personally, if they so choose, before the businesses go public.

For questions regarding the competition, submitting business plans, in general, or becoming a fund manager, e-mailBICquestions@bigredventures.cornell.edu . For more information on the Big Red Venture Fund, contact David BenDaniel at (607) 255-4220 ordjb16@cornell.edu .