Mentorship

It has been an amazing year for the $100K. After receiving the largest number of Business Plan Competition submissions ever, our judges had the difficult task of narrowing down the contestants to just 25 semifinalist teams.

There are many perks to being a $100K Business Plan Competition semifinalist – having your company’s logo prominently displayed on the $100K website, VIP receptions, lifelong membership in the $100K network – but the best part is the Mentorship Program.

We kick off Round II of the BPC season with the Mentorship Dinner, where the 25 teams get to meet their Legal Mentor and Venture Mentor (an experienced entrepreneur or venture capitalist) and begin the dialogue about their ideas. These mentors are hand picked through a selection process aimed at pairing the most qualified professionals with the individual needs of each team. Many of our mentors come from our sponsorship firms – Brown Rudnick, Goodwin Procter, Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton, Highland Capital, Adams Capital Management, Polaris, and others – as well as many of Boston’s own successful start-ups.

Through the Mentorship Program, semifinalists have direct access to experienced professionals with the expertise to answer tough questions about intellectual property, obtaining funding, building a sustainable business model, and other concerns on the minds of budding entrepreneurs. Mentors work with the semifinalist teams for almost two months to help them build the strongest possible business plan, not just for the Grand Prize of $100,000, but also for continuing to develop their start-ups in life after the MIT $100K.

The relationship between mentors and semifinalists is very rewarding on both ends.

“Our mentor was incredibly generous with this time, and came prepared to every meeting with relevant, thoughtful, and sometimes humorous comments. We hope to stay in-touch with him, personally and professionally, long after the 100K competition.”

“The Mentorship Program was a huge help to our team, we received feedback on our business plan and presentation and made several practice pitches to different VC firms. Our team was much better prepared for the semi-finals!”

- 2009 MIT $100K Semifinalists