Subject to UNH's mode of operation, the 2021 Holloway Competition will feature two virtual components this year: the Bud Albin Challenge Round will be exclusively virtual, while the Championship Round will be face-to-face for presenters and live-streamed for a public audience. Please direct questions to holloway.prize@unh.edu.
Do you have an idea for a new business or innovative solution to a pressing problem? If so, the Holloway Competition is your chance to transform this idea into reality with the expert guidance of faculty mentors and members of the business community. Beyond this incredible opportunity for learning, networking, and résumé building, the Holloway Competition awards students approximately $100,000 of cash and prizes every year!
The Holloway Competition has a strong track record of launching successful businesses but this is certainly not the only valuable outcome of participating. Regardless of whether or not you ultimately start a business based on your Holloway entry all students have the opportunity to:
Student presenting at the Holloway Competition
Practice “real world” skills building a business case for a new product or service
- Build their portfolio of professional work to help jumpstart their careers
- Network with business leaders from throughout New Hampshire and beyond
- Have a memorable experience with their teammates and fellow Holloway participants
- Win substantial prizes
- Gain confidence and have fun!
Entries should be innovative, feasible to implement and address an identified market need. Many successful businesses have grown out of past competition entries. Students who entered the New Hampshire Social Venture Innovation Challenge are encouraged to enter.
enter your idea starting feb. 1!
*If you are a USNH student or graduate student and would like to register using an email address other than @wildcats.unh.edu, email Holloway.Prize@unh.edu for additional instruction.
TRACKS
During registration you can select your preferred track, however, the Holloway Competition Chair reserves the right to change track assignments.
High Technology- The distinguishing feature of your venture is a new technology
High Growth- The distinguishing feature of your venture is high growth potential (but it does not necessarily use a new technology)
Hospitality and Service Solutions- The distinguishing feature of your venture is offering a service and/or is hospitality related
Sustainability- The distinguishing feature of your venture is positive social and/or environmental impact
Note: Information on the 2021 competition will be added as confirmed
Questions? Email holloway.prize@unh.edu
Welcome to the 2020 Holloway Prize Competition!
These guidelines will help you navigate your way through the Holloway Competition. As you start the competition, we fully understand that some of these questions will be challenging. With that in mind, please do your best to present thoughtful and professional answers to each question as you progress in the competition. If you feel stuck, don’t be shy about accessing the support resource we have available and remember, in general, strong answers are:
Specific – Offer a direct answer to the question
Well Reasoned – Make clear why you arrived at this answer over others
Empirically Supported – Replace assumptions and anecdotes with research
Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive – Eliminate redundancy while not leaving gaps
Judges will evaluate each answer on a 7-point scale and assign 30 points for the overall quality of your written and video submissions.
Thank you for participating in the 32nd annual Holloway Prize Competition and we look forward to your first round entries.
Good luck, work hard, and have fun!
Dr. Andrew G. Earle
Holloway.Prize@unh.edu
Holloway Prize Competition Chair
2021 | Date | Time | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Mon., Feb. 1 |
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Registration Opens |
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TBD | Virtual Information Session #1- | ||
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TBD |
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Information Session #2 |
DEADLINE |
Fri., March 5 |
by 11:59 p.m. |
Deadline to submit 1st round entry by 11:59 p.m. |
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TBD |
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Notification of advancement to 2nd round. |
DEADLINE |
Wed., March 31 |
by 11:59 p.m. |
Deadline to submit 2nd round entry (by invite). |
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TBD |
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Notification of advancement to Albin Challenge (semi-final) round. |
DEADLINE |
TBD |
by 11:59 p.m. |
Deadline to submit semi-final entry (by invite). |
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TBD |
12-2 p.m. |
Nelson Poster Competition (OPTIONAL) |
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Fri., April 23 |
12:50 p.m. |
Bud Albin Challenge Semi-Final and Runoff Rounds |
DEADLINE |
TBD |
by 11:59 p.m. |
Deadline to submit revised proposal (by invite). |
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Thurs., May 13 |
1-6 p.m. |
Paul J. Holloway Prize Championship Round |
Any USNH (i.e. UNH-Durham, UNH-Manchester, UNH Law, Keene State, Plymouth State) faculty member, from any department, and serving in any capacity can serve as your advisor for the Holloway competition. We encourage you to seek an advisor that has expertise in the area of your entry and (ideally) you already know from classes, project work, etc. If applicable, participants may have two faculty advisors with one serving as a subject–matter expert (e.g. a science faculty member) and the other as a business expert (e.g. business faculty member). If you do not have an advisor (or need an additional business-oriented advisor), the faculty members listed below have advised Holloway entries in the past:*
- Hachemi Aliouche, Ph.D.
- Audrey Ashton-Savage, M.B.A.
- Shane R. Baker
- Nelson Barber, Ph.D.
- Ludwig Bstieler, Ph.D.
- Jianhong Chen, Ph.D.
- Michael R. Collins, Ph.D.
- Caitlin DeSoye, J.D.
- Diane Devine, M.B.A.
- Devkamal Dutta, Ph.D.
- John D. Ela, M.A.
- Diane L. Foster, Ph.D.
- Robert A. Gough Jr., Ph.D.
- Ian Grant
- Roger Grinde, Ph.D.
- Todd C. Guerdat, Ph.D.
- Kholekile L. Gwebu, Ph.D.
- William Hassey, Ed.D.
- Meghan Heckman
- Daniel E. Innis, Ph.D.
- Valentini Kalargyrou, Ph.D.
- Jun Li, Ph.D.
- Carl Lindblade
- Jerry E. Marceau
- Michael Merenda, Ph.D.
- Lee Mizusawa
- Ivaylo Petrov Nedyalkov, Ph.D.
- Neil Niman, Ph.D.
- Matthew S. O'Hern, Ph.D.
- Bruce E. Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
- George Roth, Ph.D.
- Jeffrey E. Sohl, Ph.D.
- May-Win Thein, Ph.D.
- Elizabeth Varki, Ph.D
- Fiona Wilson, Ph.D.
- Daniel R. Winans, M.S.
- Goksel Yalcinkaya, Ph.D.
* Advising Holloway participants is strictly voluntary for faculty members and faculty members are free to advise as many or as few participants as they choose.
Participants must prepare two components as part of their initial entry: A written summary and a video.
I. WRITTEN SUMMARY: FIRST ROUND QUESTIONS
For your first round entry, simply answer the following 10 questions to the best of your ability. Entries are limited to 2 pages (single-spaced) and no smaller that 11 pt. font. You do not need to include copies of the questions in your entry, but please number your answers 1 through 10 in correspondence with the questions. Please remember to include the name of each team member and the name of your product/service/company.
1) Entrepreneurship is commonly thought of as an exercise in problem solving, so to start things off, tell us about the problem you are interested in solving.
2) Next, tell us about your solution. At this point, your solution can simply be an idea or vision for a product or service, it does NOT need to be a prototype, working app, etc. [Examples: Uber offered a new solution to the problem of taxis being hard to find]
3) Describe how your solution is better than current solutions? Think about how your solution is more valuable from the perspective of potential customers than current solutions (this will form the core of your “customer value proposition”). [Hint: Common value propositions include being easier to use, less expensive, more reliable, safer, more accurate etc.]
4) Next, tell us about how your solution works and how you plan to protect it? Is it built on an underlying technology? Is it a different approach to offering a service? Is it a new kind of process? etc. Is there any intellectual propriety (Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks) associated with your solution? If not, how do you plan to protect it from competitors?
5) One option for entering the Holloway Competition is to present someone else’s idea. If you are presenting your own idea, please go to Question 6. If you are presenting someone else’s idea, please specify the owners and provide written permission to the Chair to present this idea at the Holloway Competition.
6) Now, tell us about the market for your solution. Who will be your first customers (i.e. early adopters) and how many are there? How about other groups of customers? Add these together to estimate the overall market size for your solution and share how this overall market changing (i.e. is it growing, etc.)
7) Describe your revenue model and pricing models. How did you decide on these? Offer as much detail and support as possible. [Hint: A revenue model shows how you will be paid for providing your solution. Common revenue models include subscription (e.g. Netflix), ad-supported (e.g. Google), “Freemium” (e.g. LinkedIn), and direct-sales (e.g. Tesla)]
8) Describe your sales and distribution plans. How will you reach your customers to let them know about your solution? If they decide to purchase your solution, how will you deliver it to them?
9) Tell us about your team. Cover your backgrounds, skills, connections to this problem/solution etc. Do you have any business, technical, or industry experts that have agreed to advise you in developing your venture?
10) Help us understand how you arrived at your answers to questions 1-9. Did you conduct interviews with customers, industry experts, key partners etc.? Did you administer any surveys? Did you analyze reputable secondary data sources? Please offer as much detail as possible.
II. VIDEO: PRESENTATION QUALITY AND PROFESSIONALISM
Success in the entrepreneurship depends, in part, on how effectively you communicate your elements of venture. Strong presentation skills (written, spoken, and video) make your “pitch” more effective and can gain support from key stakeholders. You job is to tell the story of your venture that connects emotionally, as well as rationally, and present it with energy and conviction.
For the first round video submission adhere to a strict maximum length of 90 seconds.
Your stand-alone original (no off the shelf) video pitch should highlight the following:
- The problem that your product or service is intended to address.
- Your proposed solution – that is, how your product or service addresses the market need.
- How it will attract customer and sales (your value proposition) and investors’ interests.
- Technical Specifications:
- .mov or .mp4 file
- Resolution of 720p or 1280x720 progressive (Note: these mean the same thing - some video programs use one label, while other programs use the other label.)
- Codec: H.264 set to a minimum of "medium high" quality (Note: most programs ask you to specify quality on a range from Lowest to Highest - somewhere around medium high to high works well, or if it's a numerical scale, about three-quarters of the way up.)
- Challenge entrants in both tracks are encouraged to contact UNH’s Parker Media Lab with questions about video formatting. PML is located in the Dimond Library on UNH’s Durham Campus. You can contact them for advice by phone at (603) 862-1747 to speak with any of the staff team, or by email to reach PML’s manager, michael.mcintire@unh.edu.
View these additional resources to help you prepare for the competition.