Criteria & Resources

Make sure you get all the tips on how to make the jury love your idea!

Basics

  • Up to three pages allowed, and as only one Word or PDF file, uploaded through YouNoodle.
  • Use a cover page (additional to the three pages), where you write your team/business name, and
    your team members’ names including what/where they are studying.
  • Fill in your YouNoodle profiles, as jury members will be able to see all team members’ profiles
    when they evaluate your plan.

 

Competition criteria

  1. Does the idea involve a product or service innovation? (12%)
  2. Can the idea be sufficiently protected? (12%)
  3. Does the product or service relieve a specific customer "pain"? (12%)
  4. Is the market potential attractive? (12%)
  5. Does the team have what it takes to succeed? If not, can they adequately make up for it? (12%)
  6. Does the team consist of people with different and complementary skills? (12%)
  7. Overall, does the project have potential for profitable growth? (28%)

These are the exact questions the jury members are asked when they evaluate the business ideas. For further explanation of the criteria as well as examples of their use, please refer to the following table.

Feel free to ask your regional representative if you need advice on any of the criteria!

 

Criteria table

Category

Criteria (1 to 5) and weight         Explanation Example

Product/
Service

Does the idea involve a product or service innovation? (12%)

 

1: No, it is not new to the industry, but competitive in other ways.

 

5: Yes, it is a radical innovation on what already exists.

Is your idea radically different from what already exists, or are you simply doing something just a bit better/cheaper/faster than others? Email is a radical innovation to a physical letter in an envelope, whereas faster planes to speed airmail delivery is only an incremental innovation in the postal world

Can the idea be sufficiently protected? (12%)

 

1: No, the idea is easy to copy and hard to protect.

 

5: Yes, patents and/or other suitable forms of protection applies.

Can you protect your idea? Can you apply for a patent to cover your invention, and will it help you? Can a trademark or design protection help? Even if it is not necessary to protect your idea, patents often raise the value of your business and can make scaling up less risky.  Coca-Cola has a trademark and design protection, Viagra is covered by a patent preventing others from producing it. McKinsey & Company has no notable IP protection and is doing well anyway.
Market & Customers

Does the product or service relieve a specific customer "pain"? (12%)

 

1: No, the customer and pain is poorly described.

 

5: Yes, the customer and pain is clearly identified.

Have you demonstrated how exactly your customer is sufficiently annoyed with the current situation to pay money for your solution? An invention or idea can be absolutely brilliant, but may be worthless if no one is willing to pay you out of their own pocket to have that particular problem solved.  Idea: A flying car, Customer pain: Drivers in traffic jams, would be great to skip ahead, and they would love to pay extra for a car that could do that

Is the market potential attractive? (12%)

 

1: No, the market potential is not attractive and/or unrealistic.

 

5: Yes, market potential is convincing and attractive.

Rule of thumb: Market potential is the amount of customers with your customer pain multiplied by the amount they are currently spending on solving that problem.  Idea: Low fare airline based in Copenhagen, serving 10 European destinations. Market potential: The amount of economy class customers at current airlines on those 10 routes, multiplied by their average economy class ticket price. Possibly also some train and bus users?
Team

Does the team have what it takes to succeed? If not, can they adequately make up for it? (12%)

 

1: No, team lacks key skills and has not addressed this.

 

5: Yes, team has key skills, and knows how to handle areas outside these.

A bad team can make a great idea fail. A great team can make even a bad idea a success. Show the investors that you have a diverse team with different skills and as much relevant knowledge or experience as possible.  iMotions (the techie and the business man), Meyer's (the chef and the business man) 

Does the team consist of people with different and complementary skills? (12%)

 

1: No, all team members have equal backgrounds, and this has not been adressed.

 

5: Yes, team consists of complementary skills and appears to use them well.

Overall
evaluation 		Overall, does the project have potential for profitable growth? (28%)  This is a subjective evaluation by the investor or advisor. Does he or she like the idea and the team, and would they invest? Last year's top ten