Why Every Start-Up Should Enter Competitions

I believe one of the best things that an early stage startup company of any type can do is to enter a competition. The competition you enter doesn’t need to be the biggest or the most well known. I’m also not talking about only entering pitching competitions, you need to enter competitions that are aimed at start-ups and entrepreneurship.

While we don’t do this much now in the past we have entered many competitions and so far had great success. Check our awards page to see some of the awards we have won up to now. The relationships, cash prices and membership benefits of winning those awards have helped us immensely to grow as a company.

Benefits start-ups get when they enter competitions ( other than the prize money and benefits)

But the most valuable thing that you get from entering competitions is not the prizes – although they are great perks. The most valuable things are:

• The opportunity to meet like minded people and speak to them about what they are doing and learn from their experiences while gathering ideas for your own business.
• Taking advantage of the fact that most competitions offer the services of a mentor for free. This is normally someone with a great deal of experience and who is passionate about providing help to you. They allow you to sound out ideas and can help you to fully understand the implications of the ideas you have and plans you want to execute.
• During the events associated with the competition you get to network with real investors and to practice impressing them without the usual pressure associated with a pitch. If you have a great product and really passionate about it then you have a very good chance of getting funding as well.
• You get to practice your pitch! During a competition you are in a constructive environment and so people are around you to help and to provide feedback to improve your pitch. Remember to ask for feedback!
• Forces you to really think through what you are doing and actually document it and work out if it is really a viable idea.
• Feeling good about the fact that you’re not the only one struggling and fighting with your vision of what you want to achieve.

So I recommend that you get your idea hat on and start thinking and then search the web for a competition near you.