Rules & Guidelines
[Rules and Guidelines Items 5-13 Are Being Revised Before Opening of Registration and Will Be Added]
- At least one team member must be a current student, a graduate, a faculty member, or a staff member of San Jose State University. This rule is meant to assure that competing teams have some connection to SJSU. Moreover, the team member, or members, with the SJSU connection must play an integral role within the team and have a material (significant) impact on the writing of the business plan. That is, teams that only use the name(s), and not the effort, of the person(s) connected with SJSU will be excluded from the SVBPC.
- The business plan submitted by a team must have been written by that team; plans written by professional organizations, consultants, or anyone else on behalf of a team are not eligible to compete in the SVBPC.
- SVBPC teams can consist of one member or several members, but no explicit consideration in the judging will be given to team size or team composition. SVBPC participants may join more than one team.
- All teams that qualify in the final round of judging for the SVBPC, will be required to make computer slide presentations. Each team will be allotted 10 minutes to present their idea and there will be 10 minutes for Question and Answers. Allotted time may change depending on the number of finalist teams. While the submitted business plans play a major role in determining the finalists of the SVBPC, the ability to orally articulate and communicate the features of the business will also have a significant weight in the judges' decisions about the winners. In a sense, all of the finalists will have written business plans worthy of winning the SVBPC, so the persuasiveness of the final-round presentations will be key in determining the winners.
