Friday, March 19, 2010

Tweet Your Startup Pitch, Win Money

In a new twist to business plan competitions, the 2010 Rice University Business Plan Competition said Thursday that it is launching a new "TwitPitch" competition at the annual startup event, which will award $1,400, $140, or $14 to one of the 42 teams competing at the event--based on their Twitter pitching skills. According to the competition, it will select three teams based on their 140-character, Twitter message geared towards attracting an investor to their firms. According to the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, which hosts the event, a panel of judges will evaluate each pitch on the merits of understandability, completeness, creativity and salability. The Twitter pitching event is part of the overall business plan competition, which awarded $900,000 in cash and prizes last year.