Holloway Competition Details

Welcome to the 2019 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 31st 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

• High Tech - 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.

During registration you can select your preferred track, however, the Holloway Competition Chair reserves the right to change track assignments.

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:*

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.

Each round of the competition is judged by a separate team of judges comprised of successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, former competitors, CEOs, CFOs, and other representatives from business and industry. Judges’ names will be posted on the competition website prior to the event.

The Holloway Prize Innovation-to-Market Competition awards cash and additional prizes:

• Cash Awards
  • First place $10,000
  • Second place $ 7,500
  • Third place $5,000
  • Runners-up $1,250
• Website consulting and development provided by PixelMedia
• Legal services provided by Pierce Atwood
• Lynn and Mike Marsh Award for best written plan
• Nantucket Conference Registration

All teams that advance to the Bud Albin Challenge will receive cash prizes of at least $300 per team.

See Charles and Miriam Nelson Poster Competition and Bud Albin Challenge for additional prizes.

Read these FAQs about the Holloway Competition.

View these additional resources to help you prepare for the competition.

Paul J. Holloway is an accomplished and energetic business leader and a highly successful entrepreneur. Read his complete biography.

Andrew Earle
Competition Chair
Holloway.Prize@unh.edu
(603) 862-4535